Tips on cycling in South Africa.(Garden Route )

[Gearoid]

Cape Town, has plenty of clubbing and night spots, the Waterfront has every thing touristy, shops, resteraunts, movies etc and then the centre of town at night has raves, clubs, massage parlours you name it it's there.

Your daily excursions are limitless Shark cage diving, wine routes, sailing.surfing diving, and chilling out on the famous beaches.

The best is to head to the Tourist info centre on your arrival, they are a great help and have brochures and info on all the info you need. They will update you on no go areas, areas of high incidence of crime on tourists and then of course we have areas the locals avoid to.

The Tokai trail offers various options with over 50 km of trail, the run up to the silvermine gate and back is about 28km and climbs 500m,All nice loose gravely stuff on your way down you can run the the single track, which has some nice technical sections.

The youngster is a friend’s son; his mom doesn't ride so he joins us on rides. My son is working on the rigs in Scottland, he phoned last week to complain about the cold and snow. Its A LOVELY 34 d/cel here today with a clear weekend beconing, Scuba dive Saturday morning and a long ride on Sunday

The bike i will be using will be some local hybrid. So it be no good for off road. Tell ur son its all in his head. The cold that is lol. its about 10 d/cel here with lots of rain. Sure there some where to rent a bike if one needs to. Or wants to more to the point. lol 700 km done by the time i get to Capetown. Might not want to see a bike for a wee while. Is crime that bad over there. I know there is a big part of the country that is poor And the papers only report bad things as they make good news. But Good things dont make news. We have parts of Dublin you would not go in2 at night. But for the most part you can come and go as you please. All I keep reading is dont go here , dont ever walk any where after dark. Stay in a large group and the like. Sure you be use to all this. Do you ever get any trouble when out on the trial. Been reading theres been a big increase on robberies on and around table mountain.

 

[HowardSteele]

Well as a tourist like in any country you are seen as an easy mark, cellphones, cameras, travelling money so there have been a few incidents but no more than SA tourists experience in other countries.

There a quite a few bicycle hire places, do the tour organisers not provide bikes?Most of the outfit’s I’ve come across do.

You will find the Capettonians helpful friendly hosts and you’ll go back to Ireland and correct all the misconceptions that prevail.

In the poorer areas, the informal housing settlements and dodgy allyways, Its just plain arrogant walk around flashing expensive items in areas where people are starving, and not expect to be relieved of your fancy camera, jewlery and bucks . Like some of our FLASHY VISITORS do and when they are robbed they scream victim.If you plan to explore the poorer side of town i would sugest a guide,as these areas have gangster elements and gangster protoccol.

We that is all the cyclists I know, have never encountered problems

THE trails are pretty safe the incidents we have had are the results of a group of homeless people living on the slopes of Table Mountains and then the victims always seem to be women out walking the mountain on their own. The vagrants have been relocated since the attacks.

One of the problems with Table Mountain that it is so much part of the scenery, visitors and on a few occasions’ locals forget it’s a large uninhabited area, with crevices cliffs and changing weather.

The rescue services, weekly rescue, the unlighted visitor just walking to the top to see the view,like they out for a walk in the park.
Hey enough already,you are going to have a great time in our city.probablly go home with a nice tshirt tan but that'll be the worst of it.