Silvermine Solo

A perfect autumn day called for a ride! I opted for the Silvermine loop - gate to Eagles Nest look out to gate.

Surrounded by fynbos and proteas in bloom - the 12km route starts with a climb on the tar road, which can be avoided by driving up to the next parking area. Then onto the gravel jeep track leading past the Elephants Eye Cave turn off but I opted to keep climbing until I reached the look out point which was well worth the effort with views overlooking Houtbay and the Sentinal. 

Then a fast gravel road descent to the dam and picnic spot followed by a short piece of sandy, rocky single track. Finally a zoom back down to the gate on the tar road at a max speed of almost 60km/h!

Gotta be out of the reserve by 18:00...you don't want to be waited on by grumpy officials taking down all your details and threatening to ban you from entering this beautiful place ever again..

Srava details: 12.2kms distrance, 1hr14mins moving time, 487m elevation.

Race day!

Yesterday we got up at the crack of dawn and headed out to Jonkershoek for our 3rd downhill race of the year. There were almost 80 riders, all excited to ride the new extended race track. The shuttles were looooong and bumpy. Some technical issues made for many delays and few practice runs. However, it was still good fun to ride the track on our full suspension bikes, in dry conditions and seeing the usual race faces.

Proper bike check performed by my favorite feathered friend :)

View across the track as racing finally gets under way.










Some great action shots captured:

Photos by Gary Scholtz

Photo by Denise Crawford

Photo by Ewald Sadie

Photo by Ewald Sadie

Photo by Ewald Sadie

Photo by Ewald Sadie

Heading home after a long day.




















So what's the results? 
Reto crashed in a loose corner on the top section but still managed a time of 3mins 41secs.
I had an unlucky race run - got caught up to by a rider from the next category (Elite Men - the FAST guys!) - so that I had to stop and let him pass, which wasted lots of time. This was very unfortunate as I had a really good run up to that point and would have made a fair time. It came to 5mins32secs though.

Some inspirational girl power:

Whipping with a smile!
Read about Dakine rider Steffi Marth's riding in Hawaii..

Bicycle sports

Some light hearted fun at the Woodstock Cycleworks Birthday Bash & Cyclelinks bicycle Jamboree at the German Club, Hope Street, Gardens..

Some fine bikes on display.

Olaf of Crosstown Cycles getting ready to skiiiiiiid...

Polo and skid contest..

Girls rule! Some impressive track standing done by the lady with the cap!

Full moon = moonlightmass!

We made the effort to join the monthly full moon mass ride in town again for the first time in about a year, and WOW what a night...

 Choose your weapon!

A simple singlespeed..and.....

a unique and comfy cruiser! Riser handlebar, some bells and other whistles and voila! the little 80's racer is hot property :)

Besides a couple of werewolf's we saw thousands of people on unicycles, cruisers, fixies, folding bikes, electronic bikes, XC bikes, dirt jump bikes, downhill bikes, ugly bikes, pretty bikes, weird bikes, rollerblades, skateboards...all infecting the city!

But how did I forget to Strava the ride!?! LOL! A cold beer and some chitter chatter at the end of the what felt like a much too short ride rounded off yet another great evening in Cape Town.

Mid-week trail expedition in Jonkershoek

We'd rather be riding so work was put aside today! It's always very exciting to ride in this breathtaking location with undoubtedly the most enjoyable singletrack in the Western Cape.

Slogging uphill and "hike 'n biking" is well rewarded with bombing down well maintained trails as fast as you dare without worrying about traffic issues - the rules of the trail is spelled out on clearly visible notice boards regulating right of passage.

"Above Never Ending Story" is one of my favorite sections, flowy and layered with switchbacks requiring full concentration. 

OH, and for those with helmet envy...check out the rest of the NUTCASE lids on their website and

LOVE YOUR BRAIN!

Next we headed up to the start of the extended DH track. A steep drop-in (the photos don't do it justice..) is followed by a wonderfully smooth, freshly built section - right up the alley of our Bfe's and according to Strava, FAST!

Now, if you don't know what a Bfe is..head on over to the Cotic website...

The middle section had us rattling on our hardtails though. Riddled with brake bumps, ruts and grooves, this section made it clear that the race will be a job best left to the suspension bikes.

That said, I still made a reasonably good time on this section!

If the trails don't get you stoked the views will!

The bottom section is also not a smooth BMX track and some pedaling required from the by-now-well-tired legs.. But crossing the finish line happens here and we headed down to the tea garden to revitalise and make tracks homewards, leaving many great trails unridden for today but, off course we will be back for more soon!

Strava details: 15.6km distance, almost 1 hr 42 mins moving time, 787m elevation gain

Archives: Table Mountain Rides

A year ago we still stayed in town and used to cycle from our flat up Kloofnek from where we either A) dropped in to the "secret" Glen trail,  B) kept going towards the cable station to drop in at the first boom or C) went past the cable station and dropped in at the second boom. This was before Strava so I don't know what the distance or elevation of those rides where, but Kloofnek was quite a climb.

The Glen trail (which we did quite a bit of building on with guys like Nick and Shaun) was a tight, windy, technical but super fun yet "illegal" trail that dipped into the lush little valley in Campsbay.

From the second drop in point on Table Mountain the view over the harbour with Bloubergstrand in the distance and Lionshead on the left is spectacular.

At this time Tokai also still used to be synonymous with the snake trails for us. Captured a still here from a vid of Reto on the little jump at the end of Boomslang (at the ruins).






























ALSO at this point in time I had taken these photos of a friend named Richard's bike in Kommetjie.
Little did I know that a year later I would have gained a keen appreciation for commuter style bikes :)

Endurance test - our longest single day mountain bike ride to date

We set out on a ride we've been anticipating for a while: Ou Wa Pad to Silvermine to Tokai and back.
True to our style we only got it together around 12:00, stopped to fill up the flask with coffee and then headed towards Ou Wa Pad on the tar road for about 6kms including some (of many) steep sections.

At the 12kms mark we found a beautiful stream in Silvermine close to the main gate where we could refresh and picnic.

Past the main gate, another stretch of uphill tar road awaited before reaching a very rocky jeep track that leads to Tokai. I should add that taking this route into Silvermine and Tokai - no entry fees are payable except a good sweaty effort ;)

At about 18kms on the clock we reached the drop-in to the very top of the DH track from where we started a 20 minute (with a few stops) singletrack descent down to the quarry. At this point we had done just over 21kms which means a measly 3kms of singletrack after 18 of mainly uphill...we felt rather cheated starting the way back and knew that this will be the route less travelled in days to come.

Chasing the sun as it started drawing water, we popped out at the Silvermine main gate and opted for Ou Kaapse Weg tar road towards home. 

This is an amazingly scenic ride with fynbos and sugarbirds in abundance - plenty of photo and picnic opportunity. A perfect climbing jeep track training ride on which a 29'er will make an awful lot of sense.  Though happy to have been there and done that - we realised that our mountain biking smile zone lies within a sub 20kms ride with a positive singletrack to uphill slog ratio.

Strava details: Distance 42.3kms, moving time 3 hours 50 minutes (elapsed time 5 hours, 20 mins), 1421m elevation gain.

What did we get up to...first taste of DH

No riding due to home renovations but we will be taking a break tomorrow to hit the trails :)

My first experience of shuttling and riding a DH race track was in June 2012 at Zevenwacht on a ladies DH shuttle day.

Highlights on the track was the rock drop and jump towards the end.

In September 2012 we did our first DH race in Jonkershoek.

Practice day was muddy, no traction, just sliding down the mountain..but the next day the weather cleared and track condition improved.

ESP delivered some great shots like this one.

There were two timed runs in this race. Reto's second run was his best at 2:59.
(He didn't know any better and entered SUB VETS..so no podium for him).

On my second run I improved on my first time by almost 20 seconds - a time of 4:21 and got a prize for rookie of the day!

1980's Western Flyer

Here is another project - a Western Flyer from the 80's - or so I believe as it looks very similar to the frame I had when I was in school! 

The bike is now stripped, the frame in surprisingly good condition - much better than the Peugeot racer. The parts however are very dirty and rusty. I want to try and put it all back together as an exercise in bike building. 

I received our high resolution photos of the Paarl DH race from ESP.

POD!

Focus..

Railing!

Rainy randoms

Today rained and rained and rained! No riding but thats not to say I did not think about bicycles and cycling! Some random inspiration: