Garden Route Giro - 2026

[Patchelicious]

7 hours ago, MongooseMan said:

Is that you at 18mins in the video? He was also complaining about rooiberg 😂

In the white shirt, yup that’s me.

[Pure Savage]

3 minutes ago, Patchelicious said:

In the white shirt, yup that’s me.

You had a good ride today! Put some time into uncle Dave!

[Patchelicious]

2 minutes ago, Pure Savage said:

You had a good ride today! Put some time into uncle Dave!

Today was tough day too, rained all the way up Swartberg, and the decent down was “gnarly” (seems to be the word to use). I lost about 10mins on the decent. 
 

Had lekker gees chats with Dawie about midway through. 

[Dryland Events]

Relive the Stage 1 Highlights.

[Dryland Events]

Stage 2 Highlights. Stage 3 will be published later today on YouTube.

[sboschnoob]

Stage3 recap

[Dryland Events]

Stage 3 Highlights

[sboschnoob]

@Dryland Events ah sorry, did not see you there. thanks for posting the updates.

[Patchelicious]

On 4/15/2026 at 9:55 AM, BuffsVintageBikes said:

Listening to some of the feedback on social media is rather entertaining. Some are calling it champagne gravel and others, like Vera, are in tears after a stage because of the sinkplaat. When you're covering 100km's offroad in South Africa, you're seldom going to find all the gravel roads to be perfect. Hell, they can barely even get that right with the tar roads in most of the Provinces 😄

Yeah I guess it depends on which social media “influencer” is there on a “collab”.

Amongst the riders there was certainly less talk of “champagne gravel”, day 2 and 3 was definitely more MCC, some Cava and a few sections of JC Le Roux, late harvest.

Today was a good day. Going up and down Swartberg from Prince Albert side is much better than the other way around. Was worried about the 44/46, but worked out well enough. Surfaces was mostly great. Some sketchy sections on the dip between the two peaks. 
 

Top notch day 👌🏼

Tomorrow is a big day out. 126km with 2100 to Knysna… 

Edited April 16 by Patchelicious

[HdB]

27 minutes ago, Patchelicious said:

Today was a good day. Going up and down Swartberg from Prince Albert side is much better than the other way around. Was worried about the 44/46, but worked out well enough. Surfaces was mostly great. Some sketchy sections on the dip between the two peaks. 
 

How was the section to De Rust? How did the stop-and-go for the rock fall go, long wait? Ronde van Swartberg is going the opposite direction next week.

[Patchelicious]

41 minutes ago, HdB said:

How was the section to De Rust? How did the stop-and-go for the rock fall go, long wait? Ronde van Swartberg is going the opposite direction next week.

That section to De Rust wasn’t actually that bad. There was a big descent, last 30 km. It was a bit “gnarly” in some places, but overall not too bad. There were a couple of steep 15 to 18% bumps coming in.

 

The stop and go was fine because they neutralised the race for that 10 kilometre section, so it didn’t affect us. I think we ended up stopping for a couple of minutes on one side, but I think we got lucky. It did create a nice group again. Everybody kind of backed up there, so for the next section we had formed a good group.

 

The section from Swartberg to the stop and go was pretty tough because everybody was spread out and I was trying to make up time there, so that’s probably where I pushed the hardest.

[sboschnoob]

Stage 4 recap:

 

[Dryland Events]

Stage 4 Highlights: 

 

[HdB]

What time is Stage 6 expected to start on Saturday? My wife and I were thinking of riding through to Wilderness to go see the finish.

14 hours ago, Dryland Events said:

Stage 4 Highlights: 

 

 

[sboschnoob]

Stage 5 recap:

 

[Patchelicious]

8 hours ago, HdB said:

What time is Stage 6 expected to start on Saturday? My wife and I were thinking of riding through to Wilderness to go see the finish.

 

9am