Road Cycling Routes at Gariep Dam

[Neville Bailey]

We are doing a road trip from Durban to Cape Town with our caravan, and taking our road bikes with so that we can do some cycling while we are in Cape Town.

We will be leaving on Saturday morning, and camping overnight at River Destiny Campsite, on the banks of the Orange River, in the Gariep Dam area.

After a full day driving, it will be nice to get on our bikes and stretch the legs a bit, and explore the area at the same time.

Any suggestions on routes to follow, bearing in mind we have road bikes?

[Underachiever]

1 hour ago, Neville Bailey said:

We are doing a road trip from Durban to Cape Town with our caravan, and taking our road bikes with so that we can do some cycling while we are in Cape Town.

We will be leaving on Saturday morning, and camping overnight at River Destiny Campsite, on the banks of the Orange River, in the Gariep Dam area.

After a full day driving, it will be nice to get on our bikes and stretch the legs a bit, and explore the area at the same time.

Any suggestions on routes to follow, bearing in mind we have road bikes?

Hi Neville, there are plenty!!!

From River Destiny you can turn East and at Norvalpont go North to Gariep, or continue and turn North a little later to use a secondary road to go to Gariep via the dam wall.  Plenty option to the look-out point or via the bridge West of the wall.  Then the road into the town on top of the koppie.

Have a look at the Strava segments in the area.  Plenty short and steep climbs and lots of drags. Enjoy, I love that area

[Neville Bailey]

Great, thanks for this.

The access road to River Destiny is 5km of gravel - will that be sufficiently compacted for our road bikes?

[Underachiever]

49 minutes ago, Neville Bailey said:

Great, thanks for this.

The access road to River Destiny is 5km of gravel - will that be sufficiently compacted for our road bikes?

No idea, we normally stay close to town.  Note that Karoo rock pieces can be very sharp!! 

[Wannabe]

Neville, we need to meet up for a ride once you are down here. 

[Skubarra]

5km of gravel on your road bike. Sounds like something that could add a few war stories to your cycling holiday... 🙈

[Neville Bailey]

3 hours ago, Wannabe said:

Neville, we need to meet up for a ride once you are down here. 

We are camping at the Van Zylsrus Caravan Park at Kuilsriver from Monday to Thursday, so a short visit. Margaret and I hope to squeeze a few rides in the mornings, nothing too hectic though.

[Neville Bailey]

2 hours ago, Skubarra said:

5km of gravel on your road bike. Sounds like something that could add a few war stories to your cycling holiday... 🙈

Methinks we might drive the gravel road and then park at the tar road and ride from there...

[Wannabe]

1 hour ago, Neville Bailey said:

We are camping at the Van Zylsrus Caravan Park at Kuilsriver from Monday to Thursday, so a short visit. Margaret and I hope to squeeze a few rides in the mornings, nothing too hectic though.

Cool. We can meet one morning and either do a Botteleray to Stellies ride, or a Polkadraai to Stellies ride. That's if you have the time.

 

[Neville Bailey]

Bikes loaded and ready to go!

[Leslie Mc Ewan Clemence]

Hi Neville

How do you secure your bikes? We are trying to work out how to transport our MTBs in our caravan.

[Neville Bailey]

Hi Leslie,

I cut a piece of hardboard to fit inside the caravan passage and then bolted some rooftop bike anchors onto the hardboard.