Cape Town Cycle Tour 2026

[WormBike]

On 3/8/2026 at 6:02 PM, Dri said:

Saw a big crash near the front in & just before chappies. Some guy surged forward and hit a dip, lost his  balance and took out the rider next to him. Few more riders smashed into them. Never seen someone's head smack into the road so hard at 60 km/h

That was me 🥲. All i remember is cruising along at a fast pace towards chappies, maybe 5th wheel? I was trying to avoid any shenanigans in the middle/back as their usually is. Next moment I knock my head into the ground and blacked out, woke up a few moments later on the side of the road. Bystander told me a guy lost his balance and rode straight into my back wheel taking me out. Body and bike are pretty mangled but nothing broken thankfully. 

Usually feels like there's something to learn from situations like this, but this felt so completely out of my control its left me questioning what am i even doing 🤣 

Medics were really helpful and there was a nice lady and her son who helped me up + gave me some cold water. 

Edited March 11 by WormBike

[Bro Derek]

I don't know why everyone focusses on the E-bikes.

I saw way more analogue bikes being dangerous and doing stupid things than e-bikers. 

What I did notice was that there was no food/snacks given out by the race along the route. Usually they throw bar ones and other small things at you

Besides this, the race was very well run.

With the hiring of a global sports management company to organise/run the event - Golazo Sports Events - it will be interesting to see where the CTCT goes from here.

It exists (in my mind) as a charity event, will it remain as such?

I do also think the day is coming, maybe not soon, where shutting down the entire peninsula for a whole day so people can ride bikes, comes to an end.

Especially if Golazo openly move the event away from it's core.

But, from this year's experience, it gets a thumbs up from me. Some of the cyclists not so much.

[Wannabe]

11 hours ago, PappaWatTrap said:

This year was my 10th one and couldn't help to think back on the first one. I was probably 15 years old at the time. Flew down from Hartbeespoort with friends and slept over in Strand. I can just remember waking up to the south easter HOWLING.

We put our bikes on the trailer, drove out the parking garage and as we drove out my seat hit a pipe on the roof and the front of the seat bent backwards. Luckily we could sort a seat out before the start.

To this day I do not know how they didn't cancel that one, no one could start standing up, we crawled over the start line. It was easier cycling up chappies than it was cycling down in the wind, I had to stand and pedal against the wind. We obviously had to frame the Argus newspaper clippings. Did it on a yellow steel Hanson that was way to big for me. 

I don't know at what number I'll stop being excited for this race but as you can see at number 10 I still had a blast.

I still have the long sleeve shirt we got (or purchased, too long back to remember) claiming it to be the "Tour of Storms"

Who else hung onto this piece of memorabilia?

 

Edited March 11 by Wannabe
Added content

[Paul Ruinaard]

Truth be told ebikers can start wherever they are seeded but it wont give you a finish time if you start above 3 B and if you go under 3h50. I had a 2A seeding but dropped back as its not really fair if i blow up a racing group by using my motor. Not everyone has spent a long time on bikes so they dont know or care about racing groups and etiquette. Some of my mates on ebikes just went flat out. Strong boys on ebikes with tons of battery = amazing times. Not really much of an achievemnt or fair to the guys hanging on to the bunches at the back when you pull a big group in to the wind on an ebike. And given in the old days prior to riding an ebike i was always the big guy at the back bleeding from my eyeballs trying to hang on to a fast group up a hill i am very aware of this and sensitive to it. I refuse to pull a racing group if i am in it on the ebike. Maybe a social ride i will sit in to the wind on the way home as i can but not in a race. Ebikers dont know cycling etiquette IMO. And i am one of them.

 

[Robbie Stewart]

11 hours ago, Long Wheel Base said:

This dude started with us. Not a great photo but he’s on an ebike. What was the highest group ebikes were allowed to start?

To be fair, he needs motor assist to haul those tyres around the route. The rolling resistance on that rubber is horrendous. I also looks like he rides a Levo SL, which has a smaller capacity motor and much smaller battery than the full fat bikes, so he either has a range extender or had to stop for new batteries at some point(s).

[Paul Ruinaard]

9 minutes ago, Robbie Stewart said:

To be fair, he needs motor assist to haul those tyres around the route. The rolling resistance on that rubber is horrendous. I also looks like he rides a Levo SL, which has a smaller capacity motor and much smaller battery than the full fat bikes, so he either has a range extender or had to stop for new batteries at some point(s).

Yep your point is right. I have a Levo SL and full batery on eco will give you 60kms, with limited climbing. Range Extenders will help a little. If you finished on that bike from 1 C and followed the faster groups you would have to work your ar$e off. And it is limited to 32,1 kmh top speed for assist so above that its a big brick and you have to work like crazy to stay with the faster groups on the flat stuff and with the big tyres it has a ton of rolling resistance. Antone who rode one of those aroun the peninsula on Sunday put in a ton of work. You are better off on an anlogue road bike TBH as its easier. 

Many misperceptions around ebikes and ebikers. I can assure you that any of the SL MTB bikes you work a ton on and you get very fit.  they are a lot heavier than a normal MTB and have a ton more rolling resistance through the tyres which are much stickier and wider. 

[Zebra]

2 hours ago, Bro Derek said:

With the hiring of a global sports management company to organize/run the event - Golazo Sports Events - it will be interesting to see where the CTCT goes from here.

Especially if Golazo openly move the event away from it's core.

is this Galazo crew organizing from NEXT year? If so, I made some notes I wish to pass on, regarding suggested/needed 'improvements', thus my question.

thanks

Chris

Edited March 11 by Zebra

[Bro Derek]

10 minutes ago, Zebra said:

is this Galazo crew organizing from NEXY year? If so, I made some notes I wish to pass on, regarding suggested/needed 'improvements', thus my question.

thanks

Chris

They were on board this year

[Shebeen]

2 hours ago, Bro Derek said:

I don't know why everyone focusses on the E-bikes.

I saw way more analogue bikes being dangerous and doing stupid things than e-bikers. 

What I did notice was that there was no food/snacks given out by the race along the route. Usually they throw bar ones and other small things at you

Besides this, the race was very well run.

With the hiring of a global sports management company to organise/run the event - Golazo Sports Events - it will be interesting to see where the CTCT goes from here.

It exists (in my mind) as a charity event, will it remain as such?

I do also think the day is coming, maybe not soon, where shutting down the entire peninsula for a whole day so people can ride bikes, comes to an end.

Especially if Golazo openly move the event away from it's core.

But, from this year's experience, it gets a thumbs up from me. Some of the cyclists not so much.

It's not like CTCT Trust really needed additional help organizing CTCT, but the Golazo thing appears to have been part of the package to join the UCI Gran fondo series (which they also organise). One can only hope that this really does help elevate the event to the international stage it deserves.

https://www.bicycling.co.za/race-news/cape-town-cycle-tour-joins-uci-gran-fondo-world-series-for-2026/

It's a partnership and can be broken, the beneficiaries of the event will remain the charities.

 

I was skeptical of this Golazo group anouncing the 2027 World trailrunning champs on TMNP from seemingly nowhere but it seems like they have the right people to make it happen and essentially it wouldn';t happen without them. Time will tell

 

 

 

 

[Shebeen]

1 hour ago, Paul Ruinaard said:

Truth be told ebikers can start wherever they are seeded but it wont give you a finish time if you start above 3 B and if you go under 3h50. I had a 2A seeding but dropped back as its not really fair if i blow up a racing group by using my motor. Not everyone has spent a long time on bikes so they dont know or care about racing groups and etiquette. Some of my mates on ebikes just went flat out. Strong boys on ebikes with tons of battery = amazing times. Not really much of an achievemnt or fair to the guys hanging on to the bunches at the back when you pull a big group in to the wind on an ebike. And given in the old days prior to riding an ebike i was always the big guy at the back bleeding from my eyeballs trying to hang on to a fast group up a hill i am very aware of this and sensitive to it. I refuse to pull a racing group if i am in it on the ebike. Maybe a social ride i will sit in to the wind on the way home as i can but not in a race. Ebikers dont know cycling etiquette IMO. And i am one of them.

 

history shows that CTCT love picking out the naughty boys and DSQ them. They will be pouring over the evidence, some public shaming coming soon! I'm fully expecting some people to get letters asking why they did the trip to camps bay in 2:00 and then 1:50 from there to the finish  - do we put a "i got a flat tyre" template response together for them?

 

 

...net result is that in future you will see people just entering as analog bikes and riding ebikes anyway. then the next year they will have two noticeably different numbers in response.

Edited March 11 by Shebeen

[Headshot]

34 minutes ago, Shebeen said:

It's not like CTCT Trust really needed additional help organizing CTCT, but the Golazo thing appears to have been part of the package to join the UCI Gran fondo series (which they also organise). One can only hope that this really does help elevate the event to the international stage it deserves.

https://www.bicycling.co.za/race-news/cape-town-cycle-tour-joins-uci-gran-fondo-world-series-for-2026/

It's a partnership and can be broken, the beneficiaries of the event will remain the charities.

 

I was skeptical of this Golazo group anouncing the 2027 World trailrunning champs on TMNP from seemingly nowhere but it seems like they have the right people to make it happen and essentially it wouldn';t happen without them. Time will tell

 

 

 

 

I wonder if they were responsible for the shite goody bag and lack of food along the way as someone else pointed out. Cost cutting and the lowest entry numbers for a long time with the usual entry price increase look like  a bad mix for growing the event.

[DieselnDust]

2 hours ago, Wannabe said:

I still have the long sleeve shirt we got (or purchased, too long back to remember) claiming it to be the "Tour of Storms"

Who else hung onto this piece of memorabilia?

 

worn out into a rag long time ago

[Paul Ruinaard]

Things that need to change at CTCT:

- Number collection and expo. Let you print out your own number and stop wasting time and effort taking you to an expo that is really a waste of time. I would even pay extra to avoid the schlep to walk through the expo at high speed. Nothing new or that i cnat google that was there.

- goodie bags. So much a waste of time and money. Dontae this to charity.

Others?

 

[DieselnDust]

7 minutes ago, Paul Ruinaard said:

Things that need to change at CTCT:

- Number collection and expo. Let you print out your own number and stop wasting time and effort taking you to an expo that is really a waste of time. I would even pay extra to avoid the schlep to walk through the expo at high speed. Nothing new or that i cnat google that was there.

- goodie bags. So much a waste of time and money. Dontae this to charity.

Others?

 

At least 5 years cycle racing experience required to be eligible for a racing age category group, of which 2 of the last 3 must be in 1A.  <insert open flip out deck chair meme>

[cadenceblur]

7 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

At least 5 years cycle racing experience required to be eligible for a racing age category group, of which 2 of the last 3 must be in 1A.  <insert open flip out deck chair meme>

Perhaps similar in a few of the lower groups as well.

[FaizelSalie_01]

3 hours ago, Paul Ruinaard said:

Truth be told ebikers can start wherever they are seeded but it wont give you a finish time if you start above 3 B and if you go under 3h50. I had a 2A seeding but dropped back as its not really fair if i blow up a racing group by using my motor. Not everyone has spent a long time on bikes so they dont know or care about racing groups and etiquette. Some of my mates on ebikes just went flat out. Strong boys on ebikes with tons of battery = amazing times. Not really much of an achievemnt or fair to the guys hanging on to the bunches at the back when you pull a big group in to the wind on an ebike. And given in the old days prior to riding an ebike i was always the big guy at the back bleeding from my eyeballs trying to hang on to a fast group up a hill i am very aware of this and sensitive to it. I refuse to pull a racing group if i am in it on the ebike. Maybe a social ride i will sit in to the wind on the way home as i can but not in a race. Ebikers dont know cycling etiquette IMO. And i am one of them.

 

What is the fastest ebike time (unconfirmed) that you know off for CTCT? Sub 2 or just over 2 hours?