The gold standard for serious amateur riders at the Cape Town Cycle Tour is to go ‘sub-three’. If you can complete the route in under three hours, even if it’s just once in your Cycle Tour career, you can lay claim to being among the best of the best of the country’s amateur cycling set.

With a staggering 31 sub-three finishes to his name, Linus van Onselen can justifiably claim to be one of the best of the best of the best. 

“I think I’ve done 34 Cycle Tours in total, and of those, 31 have been sub-three,” he says. 

His record was dented twice by extremely windy conditions, and once when the earliest start groups were stopped on the M3 before they reached Muizenberg, with the race ultimately being cancelled. 

“I have to keep racing for that sub-three time; because as soon as I don’t do it, people will say to me, ‘Oh, is it because you’re too old now?!’”

“I have to keep going,” says Van Onselen. “I have to keep racing for that sub-three time; because as soon as I don’t do it, people will say to me, ‘Oh, is it because you’re too old now?!’”

Outside of the Cycle Tour, Van Onselen has been a passionate cyclist since the mid-1960s. “I started on the track, then moved on to road cycling,” he says. “Back then, before the Cycle Tour existed, we’d do our weekend rides up Suikerbossie, so it’s always been a popular route for us.”

Once the Cycle Tour came into existence, Van Onselen became a keen advocate for participating. “In the 1980s in Stellenbosch, I got a group of six or seven riders to meet in the morning to ride before work. That group grew to about 50 in no time. I think my influence back then was to ask the group, ‘Why are we riding?’ We needed a goal. 

“We decided that we’d train for the Cycle Tour, which we started doing every October, with racing in March as our goal. For me, even to this day, I must have a purpose when cycling. That’s what keeps me going.” 

Van Onselen says some of his fondest Cycle Tour memories include the old Camps Bay finish line. “Not because the distance was shorter, but because it was always a lot of fun finishing in Camps Bay, then going down to the beach for a swim, or sitting at the cafés watching the other cyclists come through.”

A particular highlight is his remarkable run of 21 consecutive sub-three finishes. “It was somewhat easier when we finished in Camps Bay; then, when the finish moved to the Green Point area, it got harder. 

“A few of those sub-three times also included Ou Kaapse Weg, when the route was diverted; going over Ou Kaaps made the sub-three a little bit harder, so I’m quite proud that I was able to get those times on the various routes and in different conditions.” 

All good things must come to an end, though; and Van Onselen is thinking of handing over the sub-three baton to his son, Leonardo, a well-known bike-shop owner and an accomplished cyclist himself. “I think I’ll have one more go at the sub-three this year, then take a break from the Cycle Tour for a year or two. Leonardo has 23 sub-three finishes of his own, so he’ll catch me. 

“Last year, he rode with his son – my grandson – and they finished under three hours on the tandem. I said to my grandson, ‘I’ll have one more race, then we can ride together on the tandem.’ That will be something special – there aren’t too many oupas out there who can ride

READ MORE ON: Cape Town Cycle Tour Legends