Schapenberg ride on Municipal election day in South Africa!

Every time that I return home from a long trip overseas I am reminded that I live in a beautiful place. Today is a public holiday in South Africa since it is the municipal elections across the country. It is critical that Christians should participate in selecting just, ethical and responsible persons to govern on their behalf.

Megan and I went to vote this afternoon. Since voting in the first democratic elections in South Africa on the 27th of April 1994 I am always filled with a great sense of gratitude for the opportunity, and freedom, that we have to participate in our democratic processes.

Past experience has however taught me that it is not a good idea to go to the polls first thing in the morning! Most people mistakenly think that if they go early they'll vote quickly.  Of course everyone who wants to make the most of the public holiday things the same thing and you end up standing in a line for hours to cast your vote!

Instead, we decided to use the morning wisely.  Megie, Courtney and Liam slept in a little while I went cycling with my friends.  We rode the black route of the new Schapenberg mountainbike trail here in Somerset West. It is such a beautiful, although taxing, ride!

Here are one or two pictures from the ride.

The picture above shows Ruan and Lyle.  The picture below shows the beautiful False Bay with Gordon's Bay on the slopes of the mountains.

A little bit of heaven on earth - Schapenberg Mountainbike trail

Below are a few photos from the new Schapenberg MTB trails just outside of Somerset West (Sir Lowrys Pass).  Since it has opened my friend Greg and I have ridded the black route three times with minor variations.  The full black route is quite hectic with two very serious climbs!  The first climb is a killer!  But it does get one to some awesome single track through the forests above Sir Lowrys pass village.  The second climb is the one up to Hans se Kop with kilometers and kilometers of fairly technical downhill single track!  Super riding indeed!

Riding the new Schapenberg Mountainbike trail from Ongegund in Somerset West

Greg and I headed out to ride the new Schapenberg MTB trail ride this afternoon - it is just above Sir Lowrys pass in Somerset West.  We intended doing the red route.  But, when we arrived they were closing up and so Johan Kriegler (the guy who does the Wines2Whales trail) told us how to get in along the Knorhoek road.

We met up with a few friends along the way and started riding the route with them. They turned off onto the shorter yellow route and we decided to take the red route.  About 10 km into the ride we realised that we were at the cut off point of day one of the wines2whales!  We knew that with just a little climb we would link up with the most amazing single track (from Hans se Kop down into the valley). So, we braced ourselves and climbed the black route... Quite a climb to the top, but some beautiful views and incredible single track on the way to the top!  It was worth doing the black route!

At the top we made the turn and hit the road down.  Greg was in fine form flying down the technical stuff!  I was a little... shall we say ‘sensible’ about my descent? Just when we thought it was over the route took us into a tunnel of trees and a whole new section of single track!  At the end of that we climbed next to the railway for a few km’s only to be taken into another section of incredible downhill single track – some of it quite steep like on our Helderberg ride.  Super stuff.

This is certainly a route worth riding.  Because we came in from the side (since the Ongegund office was closed) we probably missed the first 18km of the trail.  But, the last 23km we did ride was absolutely amazing!

Blessings,

Dion

PS.  If you have google earth installed on your computer just click on the attached file for a ‘fly through’ of the route.  If you don’t have it installed download google earth from here:

http://www.google.co.za/earth/