Cyclists Beware: Roosje van de kaap, Swellendam Accomodation

[Guest Mission]

Hi Hubbers,

 

A friendly word of warning for any cyclists looking to stay at this (previously) well recommended Guest house, Roosje van de kaap, in Swellendam.

 

As part of a group of 10 cyclists we'd set out to complete a social tour around the Western Cape. Roosje van de Kaap came well recommended for our stopover in Swellendam, used by friends for a number of years on various tours and Double Century accommodation.

 

Upon arriving we were "greeted" by the very unfriendly and disinterested owner Freerk, who'd recently taken over the business. As guests - paying customers - we were understandably annoyed by this, but set off for our ride that day regardless.

 

Arriving back that afternoon we found no change in Freerk's attitude towards our group. One member of our group arrived back at the Guest house early and after asking Freerk if he could show him to his room (which had previously been arranged) he was told that he didn't know the arrangements.

 

Later we learned that the owner "did not like cyclists" (his words) and asked that we do not damage his furniture with our [considerably more expensive] bikes.

 

Naturally we were unimpressed by his attitude. We promptly made alternative arrangements for dinner that night and ensured we left early the next morning.

 

We hope our negative experience with Roosje van de kaap will save fellow cyclists from similar treatment in future.

[VeloRacer]

Not Ayoba

[DavidB]

To all fellow Coronation Double Century riders stay well away from this guest house from hell. I cannot believe that the owner actually admits to not liking cyclists! He apparently implied that cyclists are just trouble! Fortunately not all the good folk are as unhelpful as this individual. So if you you are looking accommodation for the Coronation DC 2011 be warned stay well clear!

 

Dave

[MichaelH]

Hi Hubbers,

 

A friendly word of warning for any cyclists looking to stay at this (previously) well recommended Guest house, Roosje van de kaap, in Swellendam.

 

As part of a group of 10 cyclists we'd set out to complete a social tour around the Western Cape. Roosje van de Kaap came well recommended for our stopover in Swellendam, used by friends for a number of years on various tours and Double Century accommodation.

 

Upon arriving we were "greeted" by the very unfriendly and disinterested owner Freerk,

 

snip

 

snip, snip, snip

 

We hope our negative experience with Roosje van de kaap will save fellow cyclists from similar treatment in future.

 

I have just e-mailed Freerk and asked him to confirm that cyclists are not welcome at his establishment. I await his reply with great interest. I will report back...

[DavidB]

Looking forward to seeing how he explains his way out of this!

[MichaelH]

----Original Message-----

From: Michael

Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2011 6:52 PM

To: info@roosjevandekaap.com

Subject: Roosje van de Kaap: Roosje van de Kaap Enquiry

 

Good evening, I have been informed that cyclists are not welcome at your

establishment, can you confirm this.

 

Thank you

 

 

 

----The reply-----

 

No, never said such thing! Where do you get that kind of information?

And don't you think that's a bit strange question?

 

Kind regards / Met vriendelike groete,

 

 

 

Freerk and Helpi Brandsma

 

Roosje van de Kaap

 

www.RoosjevandeKaap.com

[AfreekduSoet]

What has the cost of your bike got to do with Freerk's furniture?

 

His dislike of cyclists could have something to do with this type of attitude and having to scrub grease of his furniture.

[Tiny K]

Ja wat, hy't nou ordentlik sy eie hande afgekap.... as jy dom is, moet jy mar suffer.

[Mechanick]

My Fiance is from Swellendam and they pretty much know all the places and people who own these places.

 

Roosje van de kaap was always known to be one of THE BEST bed & breakfast in town and had an amazing restaurant, but as mentioned, was recently taken over by new owners. We understand that the restaurant area is not that hygenic and back then, if you wanted to treat your family, this establishment was the place to go. The previous owners would also do effort to accompany requests from guests, now, it is not even considered.

 

There are plenty of other nice places where people can stay for a nominal rate and enjoy the hospitality of the firendly people in this town.

[Guest Mission]

What has the cost of your bike got to do with Freerk's furniture?

 

His dislike of cyclists could have something to do with this type of attitude and having to scrub grease of his furniture.

 

Fair enough - but let me put it in perspective.

 

We're not talking about a white indoor lounge suite, we'd leant a few bikes against a wooden outside table. While we're not the type to go damaging someone's furniture, given the cost of some of these bikes we were careful to not damage the table or our bikes - that's all.

[cycledude231]

saying that tho, if he got a problem with the bike against furniture, surely he can make a kind request towards the cyclist to not lean their bike against his furniture, I am sure that 9 times out of 10 the cyclist would appreicate the request and make sure as to not damage anything, not that we try to anyway.

 

Sucks that one bad experience can cause people to judge everyone the same.

 

Their loss!

[Mojoman]

If you plan on being cycle friendly, surely you can make some bike stands and leave them dotted around the place?

I have worked tourism for over 15 years and its amazing the type of person that will buy a venue and try and work it.

I see it all the time in Magalies, people come and go due to this kind of 'if you don't like it, bugger off then' attitude.

They arrive in a big removal van and leave with a venter trailer!

[Freerk]

As a bicyclist myself (even did Luik-Bastenaken-Luik, 230km, 4000m climb in 10 hours) I don't see any reason why I should be against bicyclist. When people are acting rude and keep on acting rude when you carefully point them on their behavior (not only noticed by me but by all my employees who spoke about it the rest of he week), that's another question. I will explain why:

The table in question was 1 week old and I carefully asked not to place bicycles against it, this was answered by unfriendly almost aggressive faces and attitudes. After that I help the group putting their luggages in a room to keep them safe so that they could do other activities the rest of the day. I brought the group to the room and asked them friendly and clearly not to put the bicycles in the room to spare our furniture and carpets (we have plenty of places outside the rooms to put bicycles safe and dry). Despite that some of the cyclist still stalled their bicycles in the room. Apart from that these bicyclist put their sweaty cloths on furniture all around the swimming pool, furniture that other guests can and wanted to use as well.

I tried to ignore all of it and try to explain to the woman who managed everything that we had negative experiences with previous cyclist groups but that we would do our bests to give them a good time (in the double century weekend for example we had a drunken group that were so aggressive that the two girls serving were to scared and left their work because of that). However only the first part of what I said was heard and apparently (as I hear on this site) translated as if cyclist were not welcome.

To the man with with the Fiancé I would like to say: Swellendam is a country community where outsiders (especially from another country) are not accepted. The fact of the matter is that anyone is welcome but Swellendammers themselves don't want to come and replace that by gossip. Another fact is that the hygiene in the kitchen when we bought this place was so bad that we closed the restaurant for two months to install a brand new kitchen which is very clean up to this day.

[Big H*]

Many years ago they taught me that the client is always right. Freerk moet dit dalk leer.

[Brian Fantana]

Many years ago they taught me that the client is always right. Freerk moet dit dalk leer.

What about his other clients who couldn't use some of the furniture because of sweaty bibs & jerseys on it? Are those clients not right?

 

Anyway it is good to hear both sides of the story.

[flymango]

Many years ago they taught me that the client is always right. Freerk moet dit dalk leer.

Within reason. Just because you're paying doesn't mean you can behave like an a-hole. And there are minimum standards or actions required from customers as requested by service providers to protect the interests of yourself and other patrons. E.g. smoking in restaurants, jeans on a golf course, helmets at cycle races, towels in a gym, etc.