This is the hardest 6 hours I've ever had on a bike. I didn't realise that matroosberg was waiting as the sting in the tail - so basically I thought everything was going to be OK when I hit the tar. The climb that revealed itself shortly thereafter stretched my zen somewhat.
I've not done the freedom and only 1 munga but i think they different animals. The freedom is much harder i think. No water points. No GPS allowed. More extreme.
Here's a 400km long gpx starting at the occultdale road outside durbanville and headed north east - the best and safest gravel roads I've used over recent years.
As noted there is very little that happens from Stellies and the access in and out of Stellenbosch is getting more and more dangerous from a crime point of view.
This mish mash excludes the paarl option mentioned above.
Note I'm not proposing this as a route - I usually stitch these various roads together into a route - sometimes starting in Melkbos, sometimes in Durbanville and sometimes starting in southern suburbs of CT where I live.
Wellington - Hermon - Tulbagh - Bainskloof is quite nice with the pass on tar at the end - there is a gravel / mtb route down the pass not mapped here.
gravel mish mash.gpx
I wore my devillieres cycling boland gravel monster cap from a few years back in honour of this thread today.
I paid enough for it so might as well wear it
Also - although I do work in a pay for a service industry, I am very pleased not to be in a retail / restaurant / bike mechanic space where entitlement is given such free reign. I observe the way a significant minority of people behave in these contexts and am often astonished by the forbearance and grace that service staff, including my LBS display in those interactions.
We all want our bikes serviced nicely of course but there's something about the "I demand excellent service" that is sometimes a bit narcissistic maybe.
I'm sure that bike shop managers / staff/ owners could write a pretty powerful thread regarding their experiences of customers - wouldn't be good for business of course but ...
Precisely put - when in a spot like I imagine he was in the month leading up to the liquidation he probably got into the same space a gambler gets into when he's down and reasons that if just empties the access bond he can dig his way out.
The youtube channel suggests that he's still in that mindset which is unfortunate.
Ja exactly - this wasn't a con artist story - this was just bad business with disparate enterprises (cycling, musc, events) housed in one business.
People may feel screwed over but he definitely isn't laughing all the way to the bank with our money.
Yes - I had tour de cap, boland gravel monster and tour de boland entries - having done all of them a good few times each before.
I kept it because I'm curious to see what happens. - the channel suggests I subscribe but all that I see is a playlist of beegees, Theunsn Jordaan, Dire Straits, Toto, Simon and G, - I immediately wanted a brandy and coke and an almost uncontrollable urge to put some boerie on a grid.
Whatever my bike tells you don't believe him - he speaks k@k all the time. And if it's about that time he went skidding over the berm and bounced down the hill being saved from the sheer drop by the trees that wasn't my fault.
My LBS has threatened to confiscate my hex wrenches.... Although why they'd curtail the revenue stream my optimism, incompetence and severe lack of visual spatial reasoning brings them is beyond me.
I enjoyed the delicious but as you observe, far too rare, frisson of schadenfreude a couple of weekends ago - a ferrari driver being walked back to the traffic cops vehicle while his red, no number plate narcissus mobile sat in the layby opposite the turnoff to Llandudno.
