mountain_lion

If you have contact with the landowners, ask them to consider joining the Bottelaryhills Conservancy. If there is a route that they are willing to let MTBers use to cross their farms, I am sure we can get it formalised and marked via the Conservancy. First step is always to approach the landowners.

The routes shown are the best I am aware of at present. Unfortunately the farms you crossed (illegally) before are not members of the Bottelaryhills Conservancy, at least not as far as I know. (A public bypass road over the hill to Devonvalley Rd has been on the long term road planning maps for several decades to alleviate the traffic congestion through Stellenbosch; if or when it will be built is unknown).

All the BHC MTB trails are mapped on Trailforks, including all the latest changes. https://www.trailforks.com/region/bottelary-hills-conservancy-mtb-trails/?trailstyle=random&activitytype=1&m=hybrid&z=13.0&lat=-33.90447&lon=18.77488 Get the Trailforks app to keep up to date with changes to the trails. https://www.trailforks.com/apps/map/ You can submit ride reports via Trailforks to indicate trail conditions and report issues that require attention. Reports are monitored by the trail maintenance team and help to inform priorities for the next round of maintenance work. By connecting your Trailforks account with Strava, anonymised ride data is is shared with Trailforks whenever you log a ride on Strava, This provides helpful data e.g, to generate heat maps indicating which trails are ridden most often, shows up mapping errors etc. This is very useful for trail management and can be used by riders too. If you use Strava and often ride the BHC trails, please consider connecting your account to Trailforks, it is an easy once-off process. How to connect Trailforks to Strava: https://www.trailforks.com/help/view/1/ (You can also connect your Garmin account directly to Traiforks if you use that but do not use Strava). Also note that Trailforks maps are fully route-able. Not only can you plan a route on the trail system, you can also route on the public roads to the trails. You can route for yourself, or you can create and publish a public route which other riders can then use too. https://www.trailforks.com/region/bottelary-hills-conservancy-mtb-trails/routes/

I am not 100% sure about the status at Asara, but seeing that nobody has replied yet: Rumour has it that Asara will open 1 December 2020. (Best is to confirm with Asara directly before going). Also note that Brenaissance Wine & Stud Estate on Devonvalley Road has just been added as a park & ride venue for Bottelaryhills trails. Access to the trails is still the same: Join the Yellow route via the security gate for Fransmanskraal / Dwars-in-die-Weg / The Styling Shed. Day permits can also be purchased from the security guard at this gate (Zapper payment only - no cash or card), but strictly no parking of cars at this gate please. See facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/183227135056695/posts/3706492699396770/?sfnsn=scwspmo

Big thanks to Trailblazers for the new trails and to the Bottelaryhills Conservancy for funding the build. For now we still have access to the "old" Ribbok trail, but the Kastanjeberg game fence is due to go up in the near future (not exactly sure when). Unfortunately this fence will cut off access to, Ribbok and Rooikat. At least we have alternatives in place.

It is already too dry to build decent berms and jumps; Perhaps next winter. Fingers crossed...

As you might have seen the Bonfoi fence went up earlier than expected cutting off the track accross the top of Wolfkloof. You need to use the Ystervark trail going down into Wolfkloof and back up the other side for now. Kastanjeberg fence is not up yet, so Ribbok single track is still accessible at present via a temporary "detour" through the veld. Construction of alternative singletrack is due to start soon and should be completed by end November.

Poles are going up now while ground is still softer after the rains. Not sure when the wire fence will go up, but should only be in a few weeks time from now. BHC MTB sub-com is actively busy with discussions re alternatives with landowners. Indeed a big thank you to the landowners. All BHC trails run across privately owned land and all funds generated through the MTB trails are used for trail maintenance and alien clearing. The mission of the BHC is primarily to preserve and grow the existing Renosterveld in its area and no funds go back to the landowners who generously grant us access.

Entries sold out for the Paarl Cycle Tour (guess partly due to the recent SCT being cancelled). Anyway, mrs mountain_lion has been planing to ride this event for weeks, but err never actually got round to enter... Anybody with an entry who is not planing to ride PM me please for a substitution.

Still waiting for our cancellation SMS messages... I am on MTN & Mrs. mountain_lion on Vodacom. Neither of received the SMS cancellation message. We did receive our race numbers & the mySOS info via SMS though. Something went wrong somewhere... My guess is that the bulk SMS service provider used by MedihelpSCT choked on the bulk notifications which had to be sent high priority... Fortunately we are in Stellenbosch and did not even need to get out of bed to make the call to go back to sleep when our alarm went off.

If you want an overview of the making of the Bottelaryhills trails and the cool riding available, have a look at this video (from 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2EZcEclYAs

Please note that the STBB4GOOD MTB Challenge will be making use of the Bottelaryhills trails on Saturday 12 October 2019. https://www.stbb.co.za/stbb-mtb-2019/ If you are not entering the event, rather schedule your ride for the afternoon. You will also note that most of the trails have received some love from the trail fairies (aka Trailblazers) in preparation for the event.

Found on Bottelaryhills trais on Sunday 2019-01-13: Alpinestars glove. I have it in Stellenbosch. PM me if it is yours.

Thanks trail fairies (aka land owner) for clearing the fig tree last week. Several trees down on Ribbok today as expected during the windy season... Fortunately not on blind corners.

Trail fairies please come back to Fish Eagle! Wild fig tree has come down on the bridge below the top dam wall, blocking the trail. I came down there at full pace and only just managed to stop in time! I broke and moved some branches to make it possible to pass, but it is still dangerous if you come down there at speed.