New Trails, Same Gees at 2024 FNB W2W
We spoke to race founder Johan Kriegler about coping with weather damage and building back better.
FNB Wines2Whales is one of South Africa’s most iconic mountain bike stage races. If you’ve done the race, you’ll also know how much fun it is. Over three days, from Lourensford to Hermanus, or vice versa, you get to ride some of the best trails in the Western Cape and hang out in the Oak Valley race village in between.
But the event hasn’t been without its fair share of drama in recent years. Wild weather over two successive winters did serious damage to the trail network and gave race founder Johan Kriegler (aka JK) even more grey hairs.
With the 2024 edition of W2W only two weeks away, we chatted to JK about how they got the trails ready and what riders can look forward to.

Bicycling: It has been another wet and wild winter in the Cape, after a hectic 2023. How have the trails held up?
JK: The September 2023 floods destroyed two major mountain bike bridges in Grabouw, five bridges on Paul Cluver, two bridges in Houw Hoek and five bridges over the Bot River, including the historic Beaumont Bridge, the N2 bridge, and the steel bridge in Karwyderskraal.
Since October 2023, we’ve rebuilt most of the mountain bike bridges. We had to find new crossings as most rivers are double the width after the floods. We became experts at building Da Vinci-style bridges: long, arch-type bridges to clear the span, and high enough to stay clear of future floods. We’re also busy building a 40m suspension bridge at the HouwHoek Hotel; the old 20m wooden cycling bridge there is long gone.
This year’s winter was so wet. Lourensford recorded 600mm of rainfall in July alone – a 100-year record since the farm began recording rainfall. Lourensford had two massive mudslides, similar to those experienced by Paul Cluver and Oak Valley against Groenlandberg in 2023.
But these guys are mega farmers and their motto – ‘n boer maak ‘n plan – is evident in the speed and efficiency with which they’ve repaired the farms and roads. Ultimately, our trails have held up well. The sections that were badly damaged and washed away were re-routed and rebuilt better.
Bicycling: There’s a new finish at Benguela Cove this year. What’s in store for riders on Day 3? Can they look forward to that classic, fast W2W finish?
JK: Stage 3, which was meant to be last year’s FNB W2W Switchback Stage 1, had the most damage, including to public highways and bridges. That’s why we had to change Stage 1 in 2023 to Lourensford.
The public infrastructure has since been repaired and the trails have been re-routed. For 2024, the initial part of Stage 3 is 90% the same. Riders will be familiar with the route from Oak Valley, via Paul Cluver, Bot River and Gaf-se-Bos up to the shooting range. At the top of the shooting range climb, a new and exciting FNB W2W chapter will unfold. Gone is the old route on the Karwyders gravel road, over De Bos dam and down the gorge along the Onrus River – most of those trails are gone forever. Instead, at the top of the climb, the new route crosses the Karwyders gravel road and races for 15km down to the new finish at Benguela Cove.
Cape Trails, the Hermanus Trails team and Bryan Straus (with his trail-building machine) joined forces to build four new downhill singletrack sections to Benguela Cove. The last 3km in Benguela Cove is a single track along the Bot River Lagoon, with a short climb towards the finish. This section opens a magic new view of the Atlantic Ocean,the lagoon and the Kogelberg mountains.
Bicycling: We heard a rumour that Day 1 was going to start and end on Lourensford (like last year) and skip Gantouw Pass and the A-Z trails into Grabouw. Is Gantouw still Plan A, with Lourensford as a bad-weather option?
JK: All the trails have been properly repaired. Therefore, Gantouw, A-Z and the Protea and Waterfall trails will link up as the ‘eastern highway’ for the 2024 FNB W2W.
Huge thanks to Pieter Silberbauer from Trails End Hotel and his team for assisting to rebuild two major bridges and the Grabouw trails.
Bicycling: Tell us about the new trails on Day 2. Play Day has always been a highlight on W2W, what can the riders look forward to?
Yes, it will be the old favourite! Last year, due to major flooding two weeks before the event, some of the old Play Day trails were missing in action, like Pofadder in Paul Cluver. (Riders had to do a long nightmare climb instead.) We had to re-route and reconstruct Pofadder (now version 5!) with a spectacular bridge and other genius re-designs. I’ve got a Joker up my sleeve, but I’ll only show the card closer to the event…

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