DJR

That is a truly deep question ......... I need more coffee before I can answer .......

.........the police is looking for a gang of petrolheads with great taste but no common sense.........

The next bus driver should learn from this ...... do NOT leave the bus unattended and idling while chasing the thief on foot ....... chase him with the bus and have a little slip of the brake pedal ........ where is that lovely Comic Sans button when I need it?

Very good post Mamil. Sadly, I agree. My own conclusion, after way too many close encounters, daily seeing the crazy dangerous driver behaviour and one very-near-to-final crash, is that the risks of road cycling in and around the City of Cape Town, now outweighs the benefits for me personally. The volume of traffic and the general level of skill as well as the extremely aggressive attitude, does not favour cyclists. If it sounds like I have lost my nerve, then maybe that is, at least partly, true. I should really sell my road bikes and ride off into the sunset on a mountain bike.

Just for accuracy - several of the attached photographs are of dead trees much higher up the mountain and far above Deer Park. Much of the dead gumtree plantations pictured were killed by the great fires of a few years ago and has zero to do with Sugarbird or ringbarking.

Rule number one is always STAY ALIVE!

I recall someone posting about a trucking (or was it a bus?) company in the UK (I think) who forced their drivers to ride a bicycle to work from time to time and that the increased awareness, of how vulnerable cyclists are, dramatically reduced the number of cyclist related accidents involving company vehicles. Perhaps it is time to do that here also? I know that after some complaints years ago, the big tour bus companies in the Cape promised to include cycle awareness and safety in their inhouse training programme for drivers. I hope they still do. Lastly, I think that there are many roads (like the Clifton part) where large trucks and busus should be restricted. The construction companies should simply use smaller trucks or be forced to get special permission to use it at night. Buses should be restricted to medium sized ones or forced to use another route.

Trouble for me is that selling a Colnago is nearly like giving your kids up for adoption ..........

Me too ...... I no longer consider Sea Point to Bakoven as a reasonably safe route. Too narrow with too many crazy, homicidal, idiotic, impatient, drunk, drugged, unlicenced, racing, reckless drivers of anything from a Smartcar to an articulated 18 wheeler truck. No longer a place I want to put my frail bag of bones and flesh through. Sadly.

Ha ha, they say the most unkind thing you can do to a man, is not to show him a picture of what he looked like years ago, but to play back the words he said then! Everyone expects you to look older, but at the same time expect your words to still be right and relevant! Methinks, it will be true for all of us.

Chappies is a special place when you are on a bicycle! In my fathers' 80th year, I rode his last CTCT with him. Picture us slowly grinding up Chappies at near-track-stand pace. He called it slow-and-steady. Half way up we noticed an old cycling buddy / adversary of his, also in the same age group, sitting on the stone wall taking a break ......... I asked "Dad, do you want to pull over and say hi?" Meaning to make a safe way for him through the crowds, good domestique that I was on the day. "Hell NO" was his somewhat breathless reply. "This is my chance to put some time on him!" And we did!

I disagree. Everyone is welcome here, beginners, professionals, even over the hill old guys (me?). Everyone should have a safe place here to voice their opinions, but always with a good measure of respect. Just like everyone should have the freedom to disagree, sometimes strongly, and still be welcome.

Yes, it can be seen clearly on the front of Table Mountain also, especially on the lower slopes above Vredehoek and around to the Blockhouse side.

I do not think that the nearest two cyclists are riding side by side. Look carefully, the one is clearly in front of the other and they are not riding the same line. The right one is turning in after overtaking the left one. (A feasible explanation methinks.) The driver is overtaking across a solid line and dangerously close to both the cyclist and the runners. So, the one undeniable illegal action, is by the driver.

Grassland conservation and restoration is urgently needed. Sadly, people mostly undervalue grasslands in terms of biodiversity and for how much it contributes to the ecology and balance of ecosystems.

Kirstenbosch only planted and maintain plant species indigenous to South Africa. The only trees from elsewhere were planted long before it became a botanical garden. There are now very few of those left. The big oak near the "otter pool" is one of the last examples of this. But Kirstenbosch have many many plants that are from other parts of the country and that do not occur naturally on Table Mountain. These are exotic to the mountain. They even have a small baobab from the Limpopo area in their greenhouse as well as succulents from the Karoo. Is this right? Strictly from a conservation point of view, it can be argued that it is not. But then, the botanical garden has other functions, like education, and for that it makes sense. I agree, there is no one right and one wrong. (I also like shade and forests.) Good discussion!

There is also a lovely bit of single track on SANBI/Kirstenbosch land that was funded and built by them without any cost to the cycling community. It links the Newlands Forest and Constantia Neck mtb route together. That is how you can now ride your MTB all the way from Signal Hill, past Rhodes Memorial and on to Constantia Neck. Below the Kirstenbosch upper gate there is another nice and steep little single track loop than can be linked to the Cork Oak grove along Rhodes Drive and the Constantia Greenbelts.

Kirstenbosch is outside the Table Mountain National Park, so, not the same landowner or the same mandate to conserve and rehabilitate that SANParks have. Kirstenbosch is owned by SANBI, that basically functions like an NGO. Its mandate is MUCH greater than just the Kirstenbosch Botanican Garden, the thing most people see. They are the custodians of basically all the plant specimens for the whole of the Fynbos Biome (the smallest and richest plant kingdom on earth) and their herbarium is internatinally renowned for it. They do extensive research and conservation projects, identify and describe new plant species, preserve threatened ones, even grow plants for re-introduction. Besides for the garden and restaurants, they also have extensive offices and laboratories where botanists from all over the world work. The land where the Botanical garden is today, used to belong to old Cecil John Rhodes who left it to the people of South Africa, exactly like Deer Park. The lawns in Kirstenbosch (exotic grass) were grain fields of the farm called Paradise. The natural vegetation between the lawns and further up the mountain, were left over bits of Fynbos that the botanical garden kept. No land was cleared for the establishment of the garden. Other parts of the agricultural fields were planted with indigenous species from all over South Africa, as a showcase. Many are not native to Table Mountain, but fitting for the purpose of showing and education. A few exotics like oaks were kept because they have historical value. No invasive exotics are tolerated in Kirstenbosch, except the lawns, which are accepted and managed not to spread. The higher indigenous forest part of Kirstenbosch is some of the last natural Table Mountain forest left and is very well looked after, better than the parts that belong to SANParks in the adjacent Newlands forest. (This is truly worth a hike) SANBI and Kirstenbosch do have their problems and their detractors, but are rated as one of the top 10 botanical gardens in the world. They must do something right.

The arial photograph you attached is perhaps the best argument for why some form of renewal on the slopes of Table Mountain is needed. Look at the area above Table Mountain Road (that had no or few pine plantations) and compare it to the area below the road that have been planted for about a 100 years. There is a significant difference with the lower slopes vastly more degraded. Now, how to deal with it? The best is to allow it to regenerate from the natural seed bed that is (hopefully) still left and viable after all the plantations and the all too regular fires. What will prevent this re-growth? Alian vegetation. So, control that first. About the Stone Pines: They are not particularly invasive. That is why SANParks have decided to leave them alone and let them meet their natural demise as they age. So, that is why, after the fires around Rhodes Memorial, they only removed the burnt Stone Pines and left the live ones. There are several places in Cape Town where, recently, new Stone Pines were planted with the blessing of most right-thinking conservationists because they are of some heritage value also. The Grand Parade and on the N2 / Philp Kgosana / Hospital Bend area as 2 examples. They are also being left alone on Rondebosch Common. All of those are more appropriate places for Stone Pines that the edge of Table Mountain. Other Pines: Cluster Pines, the ones grown for timber, are very invasive and should not be allowed anywhere near something as precious as the Fynbos Biome. Sadly, they have, and became so serious a problem that we should do all we can to eradicate them. Biological control won't be allowed because it will also affect the commercially valuable timber plantations elsewhere, so cutting them down is about the only option. Deer Park: An argument can be made for leaving the Stone Pines in the lower part of Deer Park alone, the part that is surrounded by suburbia. A similarly valid argument can be made for removing all Stone Pines from the upper part of Deer Park where it runs onto the lower slopes of Table Mountain National Park. Questions that came to mind: Are the Sugarbird people removing Stone Pines from the lower part of Deer Park? Or just the upper part? Are they removing Cluster Pines? Or Stone Pines also?

NOPE! I urge you to go and look for yourself, in real life, not just online, at what happens when especially pines are removed from the slopes of Table Mountain. As a quick start, go to (1) Silvermine and (2) Rhodes Memorial. Both were cleared relatively recently and are practical examples of regeneration. 1. At Silvermine (West) the whole area for kilometres around the dam was covered in monoculture pine plantations up to around 20 (?) years ago. They were removed and the way the fynbos grew back from a 100 year old seed bank was simply incredible. No barren dust bowl! If you want to treat yourself to biodiversity, go when the pincushions and proteas are flowering, or the ericas, gladioli, geraniums, disas ....... the list is endless. 2. Between the entrance gate to Rhodes Memorial and the Newlands Picnic area, the pines were removed around 30 years ago and indigenous yellowwood trees planted in their place. Yes, they mistakenly planted the Knysna Yellowwood, and they are slow growing trees, but they are now 3 storeys high, beautiful shade trees, and they are still little trees. A lovely piece of mtb single track runs through there. No windswept sunburn desert!

I think it is now more dangerous to go through there on a bike.

I love the somewhat abstract composition of the circles within circles and scenes - cool

Cool mural

The trouble with real leather bartape is that if you want to make it, you have to buy a whole skin of the right type of leather from Woodheads. Then you have to cut it into ribbons and if you really want to do a great job, make perforations too. For that you need a specialised little machine, because it is simply impossible to do it precisely enough by hand. Right next to where Woodstock Cycleworks used to be in Searle Street, was a business called Velobrien (Gareth O’Brien) who could do this kind of thing perfectly. He did some saddle work for me a few years ago. If someone wanted leather bartape bad enough for a restoration or a cool ss build, Garteth would make it and end up with many rolls of tape that they could sell through Woodstock Cycleworks. That's how I found mine.

Check with Woodstock Cycle Works (now in Obs). They used to have some that they had made up specially.