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Klapperkop


MaxUmis

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In practise yes, in theory no. The venues belong to different entities. Groenkloof/Fountains belongs to PRETORIA while Voortrekker is a private institute. Hence moving from one to the other would have to involve paying which means additional logistics. Would be nice.

 

Oh and the guy who reckons there is a tunnel linking Groenkloof and Klapperkop is smoking something

 

There is a tunnel... but it's more like a stormwater tunnel.

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Muddy.....

 

I mostly smoke old socks and my pink panties. Maybe that is why I know of the "tunnel". :D

 

It's a storm water drain going underneath the R21. They closed it off so that no one can sneak in but in the OLD days you could go through there into Groenies.

 

We use to enter Groenies, do a lap or two and exit that way to do a loop around the air force base. :thumbup:

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  • 4 weeks later...

I see they have started marking out a new trail starts at the north side of the bottom gate but its quite tough. They have only marked out 4 kms of the track but this gives you 170m of climbing in mixed single track and jeep track. I think there's more to come will give it a go on the weekend.

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When on MTB I ride a whole loop of Klapperkop, anti clock wise. Starting from guard house on Waterkloof end follow J.Rissik and turn right and up towards the antenna. At the top I enter a path on the left and follow it on the backside of the hill towards the reservoir / west. At the intersection I turn right and down towards the fence line and suburb. The track continues all the way down towards George Storrar . Just ahead of the guard house (not manned) a path turns left and up, left again and then into a steep, tough climb straight up. Just before you are almost back on the height of Johan Rissik the path turns right into a winding downhill through the bush. It leads almost all the way back down to Fountains Circle. There it meets a jeep track that I turn right onto and follow southwards. It comes out on Rissik above the guard house on the R21 entrance (they have just installed a boom that end to block cars going onto the track and dumping trash). I cross the road and go up the down hill route as far as I can. Back down and left onto the gnarly Zebra trail, all the way to the fence line of the golf estate. Along the fence and back up to the guard house. Lap complete. With variations and some hill repeats I can have lots of fun at Klapperkop for 90 mins in the mornings without any boredom. Great place. Havent observed any security issues.

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Kletterer, I have cycled a avery similiar route to yours but if I look at the new marked trail two things emerge. Firstly it is a clockwise route and secondly it adds a nice single track climb upto where the pipeline is.

 

I believe that you may pick up some problems if you do the single track section in a anti clockwise direction as it is fairly tight. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the trail pans out but overall I agree with you this is gem in the making.

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  • 10 months later...

Did a couple of sections of K-Kop again yesterday, man it's fun (and free lol)

 

Parts of the track needs some attention though - who would be interested in forming a work party?

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Which parts are you refering to . On my normal training route I go through Klapperkop but there is only the one bit of single track starting on the R21 side going up the hill and then down towards to east side corner from where you take that little hill up the back towards the cell towers .

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Has anyone been to Klapperkop more recently?

 

How's the riding? and is it safe enough to do some solo exploration?

 

I've been on my own on the MTB trails - freakin tough, but safe enough. Guess I was to tired to care...

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Just love the Klapperkop track. it forms part of my regular route to Voortrekker and groenkloof.

 

Riaan, I will be interested in helping out on the tracks.

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Entering from the East, there's a NICE singletrack running all the way to the R21. The Zebra's and Gnu has created a variety of off-shoots to this track, if one were predisposed to a 'bit' of work it can turn out awesome. The prob at the moment is that, as it's now, it's overgrown in places, unclear in a lot of places, and is going to become a rainwater runof in quite a few places as well. So, maintenance would be to cut some grass, widen some areas, and do some outsloping at others (along with a bench cut or two)

 

Longer term there's a TON of animal trails that can be made MTB friendly(ier) The trail is supposed to be maintained by Thinus from Groenkloof, but that's not happening :) I'm busy chatting to them to get permission to do their work for them lol.

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Riaan, there was a veldfire on the R21 section and many of the trails are now visible. There appears to be quite a few options on this section with one ( just below the reservoir) in particular that needs about a 3m bridge to open it up. PM me if I can help.

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I was there yesterday :) gotta love power outages at the office :clap:

 

I took a walk along most of the track (of course after riding it, and before riding it again) and there's some great potential there. David Boschoff from Groenkloof is 'tasked' with creating and maintaining it, but no-one's been there in months. I'm trying to get hold of him, but hurgnnnghhh. Will probably have to go knock on his door :)

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The storm water tunnel was used when the Fort-to-Fort Mtb race existed around 2002 / 2003. Used to be a nice technical 55km race before all the developments cut away half the route. Similar to what happend with the Urban Assualt at ruimsig.

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Just got a line on a whole kommando of suckers volunteers to help out with manual labor should plans go ahead :devil:

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Ok, an update!

 

The guys managing the track's interest has been peaked, now we need some action. They would like us to present a map with possible trails marked at a meeting next week ... so who's up for a recce with a GPS on Sunday? Will involve more footwork than MTB work. Show of hands please, then we can set a time - I'm open in the afternoon.

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