The One Ride That Never Gets Old
No matter the season or the weather, this is the ride that's a convenient outlet for finding this author's pedal stroke again.
It’s the last day of the school holidays.
The rain is lashing down and the wind is howling. Instead of spending the morning riding a bike with my child, as was the original plan, I’m sitting at an indoor trampoline park with a bizarre reggae version of John Legend’s ‘All of Me’ blasting, and 20 sugar-hyped kids screaming at ear-splitting levels.
The poster for Alien famously said, “In space, no one can hear you scream.” I promise you this: if you take kids to space and feed them nothing but slushies, you will hear them scream.
This situation did get me thinking, though, of some of the more unique settings I’ve written columns in – like, for example, an article for this magazine in 2017 that I finished while bouncing, crying and praying through a flight from Seattle to Miami in a tumultuous four-hour thunderstorm.
My train of thought, as it so often does in the scrambled mind of a writer (particularly one dealing with the death throes of the school holidays) then took me to the most notable locations I’ve ridden in, through or to.
Because of my work, I’ve been lucky enough to run and ride in some truly memorable parts of South Africa – the mangroves of the Wild Coast, for instance, or up an actual goat track near Umngazi, complete with grumpy goats, obstinate chickens and a few laidback locals puffing the local herb. That was rough and raw mountain biking, but utterly unique at the same time.
Similarly special in my mind is the Groenfontein road in the foothills of the Swartberg, between Oudtshoorn and Calitzdorp. (The 36ONE Challenge takes riders through here.) It’s a beautifully serene and scenic part of South Africa, and a stretch of dirt road that every cyclist should experience at least once; especially if you finish in Calitzdorp, and head straight to Boplaas or De Krans for a port or two.
The list goes on: the road beneath the jacarandas at the Double Century, whizzing through Misty Cliffs on the Cape Town Cycle Tour, the Umkomaas Valley section of sani2c… These are all portions of rides that live long in the memory once you’ve ridden them.
But one ride that never gets old for me (unlike the trampoline park, which gets old very quickly), is my go-to backyard trail along Table Mountain jeep track up to the Blockhouse and back down.
When I need a quick fix, it’s always there. When I’ve neglected my bike, as I have done this winter, it’s a convenient outlet for finding my pedal stroke again. And there’s something mesmerising about the city views below as you grind your way up.
It’s straight up and straight down, and you can choose to avoid all the technical bits, including the steep singletrack used on Epic prologues in the past; yet it’s a ride that never gets boring. I’ve ridden it in gale-force Cape south-easters (not fun), in ice-cold winter rain (sort of fun), on pitch-black winter mornings (actually, a lot of fun), in searing summer heat (fun coming down, to the pub), and – just once, in 20 years of riding – enveloped in mist from top to bottom, only breaking out of the cloud cover on the last turn to the Blockhouse (pretty darn spectacular).
In fact, I see the rain has finally stopped, and the sun has just come out. I may just head out for a spin while my child comes down from her slushie rush.
It’s the dog’s turn to babysit anyway.
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