New Mugging Hotspot: Queen Elizabeth Bridge: Avoid Town

[WarwickL]

Tandem was mugged at queen Elizabeth bridge Sunday morning. 6 cyclists then turned to help and we were set upon by a mob of about 20 - some with knives. Further cell phones, Garmins were lost. Fortunately nobody was injured. Best to avoid town (even in a group) (and if you do get mugged, - dont stick around - get away as quickly as possible - even if you are in a group).https://goo.gl/maps/PHMkKR7D3jS2. V kind note from my mate below.

Hi Guys,

Hope that you guys are well and that you had a much better Sunday ride than what we did!

A small group of us met yesterday and rode the Soccer City Sunday route, a route that we have been riding since 2010. J, my beautiful 15 year old daughter and I were out cycling on our tandem enjoying a fantastic ride when we were accosted by a group of knife wielding thugs. What happened to us should never happen and if it was not for the incredible bravery of the rest of the group who headed back into obvious and significant danger to help us, we would have had a very **** day!! To MC, who ended up having his phone stolen while helping us, W – fought like a beast, G Y, G from Europcar, C, R Z, and J, - please accept our huge thanks and gratitude for all that you did yesterday. Looking back on yesterday we are greatly privileged to call you our friends, and I feel sorry that life is so hard on so many in our country that they consider theft as one of the best options of survival.

J and I are fine, and I hope that the rest of yesterday’s team are getting over our ordeal! We are going to have to rethink some of our routes and avoid any area that looks suspicious. Even in groups we are targets for our valuables.

Let’s all take more care out there, yesterday was a wakeup call, it could have been so much worse! Once again my sincere thanks to all on the ride yesterday, you guys are Stars and deserve medals for bravery!

All the best,

J

PS I don’t have a cell phone but hope to be back on air soon!

[Honkdonk]

This is not good. 

I will copy this post into the Bicycle Safety FB page

[travisza]

Wow, and my mate and I were planning to ride from randburg through town and back. So glad we decided to park on the otherside of town and ride from there.

 

Sorry to hear about your story!

[Wannabe]

I hope you guys reported this incident to the SAPS, this is really disconcerting.

 

Any further feedback?

[nonky]

Sorry to hear about what happened.

 

 

 

Despite the poster's noble sentiments, I have no sympathy for these criminal scum.  They are cowards that prey on the weak and use maximum force for little gain.  They should be removed from society permanently (ie long jail term) but that won't happen in our "wonderful country" (which we all love so much) because theft is no longer a crime in SA.

[Patchelicious]

Pity, this was the route we used to get to the Souff, never with any issues. We actually loved riding through there.

 

We will not be taking this route anymore

[carbon29er]

Looks like we are returning to medieval times when it was perfectly acceptable to invade neighbouring territories and help your self to the belongings of others. The stronger your warriors and the less they feared dying the more you stole.  And the strongest became royalty.

 

With the unemployment rates where they are and the abject poverty that abounds cyclists must look like easy, risk free pickings.

 

Not sure in we expected to be thrown back to these times in the 21st century.