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.