Singletrack holiday Garden Route
Tour duration: 10 days
Tour date: Contact us for dates
Tour price: R 25 500 per person sharing (+R3000 for single supplement)
The basics:
• Intermediate fitness required
• Intermediate/advanced technical skills advised
• Best bikes to ride our mtb trails are 4-6 inch full suspension trail bikes.
• You can rent bikes from iRide Africa
• Each day we ride about 2-4 hours (15-40km) in the morning and after a great lunch, you can choose to do what you want in the afternoon. Lots of riding but also lots of relaxing and exploring time.
• Our elevation gain on each ride ranges from about 400m-1000m
• Temperatures are hot! You can expect 25-35 degrees Celsius on most of the singletrack holiday
Included:
• Airport transfers
• Van, trailer and driver/guide for 8 days
• Cycle guides for 10 days
• Accommodation at 3/4 star Bed & Breakfast, 7 nights
• Fantastic picnic Lunches
• 1 South African style Braai dinner
• *All prices are based on double rooms per person sharing.
• *Single room supplements are available on request.
Not Included:
• Dinners
• Drinks
• Flight
• Bike hire
• Taxi to dinners
Singletrack holiday Day 1, Monday
Welcome to South Africa!
Transfer:Pick up in Cape Town/Airport. Transfer 15 minutes Durbnville
Location: Durbanville
Lunch: Hillcrest Wine Estate
Ride distance: 20-35km
Technicality: 8/10
Highlights: The Cobra trail (Hoogekraal), Supertubes, Cheeky corners (Contermanskloof) and the Bloemendaler (Hillcrest)
Start your singletrack holiday on one of Cape Town’s best trail systems! The mtb trails are packed with berms, high speed, small jumps and great views of Table Mountain and the ocean. Riding is mostly singletrack but to link the different systems together, we’ll use some dirt and tar roads. the mtb trails are super dry at this time of year and lots of devil thorns and rocks so tubeless tyres are a requirement! We’ll be hitting these trails before the Cape Epic riders have a chance to destroy them a week later ;). Not sure what to expect from your singletrack holiday in South Africa?
Accommodation: Durbanville
Singletrack holiday Day 2, Tuesday
Slick Rock & Singletrack
Transfer: 40 minutes
Location: Paarl Mountain
Lunch: Spice Route Biltong & Barley
Ride distance: 20-25km
Technicality: 4/10
Highlights: Great views, massive granite rocks, flowing trails, Coffee,beer and wine tasting!
Our singletrack holiday offerings are constantly chaning due to new trail systems being built all the time. The Rhebokskloof trails ae some of the newer trail in the area. We link a XC singletrack trail system with Paarl Mountain reserve so a lot of dirt roads but in a magnificent setting. A visit to the impressive Taal monument that celebrates the Afrikaans language and maybe a quick spin down the local downhill track to keep things interesting!
Transfer: 30 minutes Stellenbosch
Accommodation: Stellenbosch
Singletrack holiday Day 3, Wednesday
Earn your berms
Transfer: None
Location: Jonkershoek
Lunch: Ride in cafe’
Ride distance: 25-40km
Technicality: 7/10
Highlights: Firehut trail, Never ending story, Canary trails
Beautiful mountain views and purpose made singletrack- Jonkershoek mtb trails are a must do for any rider visiting Cape Town! Take a look at what riding the IMB magazine crew got up to when we showed them around the Jonkershoek mtb trails.
We ride out from our guesthouse to the Jonkershoek mtb trails reserve for an epic day on the bike. The singletrack is purpose-made for mountain bikes and it has all the elements of riding that will have you ‘whooping’ down the trails!
The ride ends at a beautiful café not far away where we can enjoy our wholesome lunch and CBC beers and let the stories flow!
For those with energy in the afternoon, there’s an amazing secret spot full of berms and jumps to go and have fun on.
Accommodation: Stellenbosch
Singletrack holiday Day 4, Thursday
Greyton is great
Transfer: Stellenbosch-Greyton 2 Hours
Location: Greyton
Lunch: Oak & Vigne
Ride distance: 35-45km
Technicality: 5/10
Highlights: Beautiful village, wilderness ride, natural trails
We love taking guests on this singletrack holiday as it allows us to visit one of our favourite towns in South Africa! Greyton is a small, quaint village where gardens thrive and the living is slow and easy. A mtb trail system built by the locals ensures that there are always new trails to explore. The mtb trails can be more on the ‘wild side’ but, in our opinion it only enhances the wilderness experience and the area offers some of the best backcountry mtb trails we know of in the Western Cape.
Accommodation: Post House
Singletrack holiday Day 5, Friday
Pumps & Jumps
Transfer: Greyton to Karatara – 5 hours
Location: Knysna
Lunch: En-route
Ride distance: 20-35km
Technicality: 7/10
Highlights: Pumptrack, berms, jumps and drops-a perfect place to improve your skills!
We’ll detour to the newly built Garden route trail park. It plays bigger brother to the ‘G-Spot trail’, except that it takes you through tight and twisty, ancient indigenous forests. It’s a small trail system (about 25km) but makes up for it with it’s flow trails full of berms, jumps, pumps and drops. The trail names inspire you to go a bit wild on your bike – Lunacy Lane, Crazy Creek, Forest Frenzy, and Jungle Fever! It’ll be hard to leave this spot and it’s a great place to learn to get some air time! The mtb trails here are the closest we get to a European trail centre. The flow trails are incredible and the jumps cater to all skills levels and it will undoubtedly be one of the highlights of your singletrack holiday. You will also come across some jumps that look more like mountains-
Accommodation Garden Route Trail Park
Singletrack holiday Day 6, Saturday
Touring day/Rest Day
Transfer: 25km Knysna- Kynsna Forest Lodge
Location: Knysna
Lunch: Picnic
Ride distance: 25-45km
Technicality: 3/10
Highlights: Dropping onto Knysna lagoon
After 5 days of solid riding on our singletrack holiday, we reckon most people will need a ‘rest day’. We can almost guarantee that you will want to repeat a few of yesterday’s fun mtb trails so we’ll start off with a short ride if you choose and then head out for 25km of beautiful dirt road ride. This is the only day on your singletrack holiday where dirt roads will feature more than singletrack (for those who want to stay out the car). The incredible off road pass will lead us to the beautiful Knysna lagoon, where we can stop for lunch before transferring to our accommodation for the night.
Accommodation Knysna Forest Lodge
Singletrack holiday Day 7, Sunday
Garden of Eden
Transfer: None
Location: Knysna
Lunch: Picnic
Ride distance: 25-35km
Technicality: 6/10
Highlights: Quaint cottages, riding through massive indigenous forest and bursting out to seaside cliffs. All on flowing singletrack.
An iconic South African mtb trail that will touch your soul. While not at all technical, this is a much harder ride than the 25km indicates! One reason these mtb trails are so great is that you get to experience riding in dark, cool indigenous forest and then suddenly pop out on top of massive cliffs above the Indian Ocean, surrounded by fynbos and covered in sunlight whilst the waves crash below you.
The Knysna forests are famous for their mammoth, ancient indigenous trees. What they should be famous for is their amazing mtb trails and diversity of the environment you get to ride through. The entire Harkerville forest grows ever so slowly between Knysna and Plettenberg Bay, and there are still wild elephants roaming through these forests but nobody can agree quite how many. The bird-life is incredible with exotically coloured birds swooping through the branches and you would be unlucky not to spot an antelope scurrying through the bushes or a troop of baboons chilling out next to the singletrack. In this magical place, you will hope that your singletrack holiday never ends!
Accommodation Knysna Forest Lodge
Singletrack holiday Day 8, Monday
Rest/Transfer Day
Transfer: Knysna-Grabouw 5 hours
Location: Grabouw
Lunch: On the road (padstal)
Ride distance: 0km
Technicality: 6/10 (if you choose to ride)
Highlights: Rest Day!
We transfer along the Garden route towards Grabouw. Situated in an area called the ‘Overberg’, these plantations are surrounded by a picturesque countryside with fertile valleys, overlooking orchards and rambling roses, open pastures, scenic pass and majestic pine covered mountains. The area is famous for it’s export apples and we’ll be riding through orchards from which you have probably eaten an apple or two before! There are some fantastic mtb trail centres out this way (the Cape Epic use them with rave reviews from the entrants) and the feeling of serenity and space will plant a silly smile on your face for days.
The Elgin Valley borders the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, a protected area of more than 1600 plant species! This area is just too beautiful to hurry through and the accommodation is just too unique to not stay for a few nights-after all you are on a singletrack holiday! Our funky airstream trailer accommodation, overlooking apple orchards means we can climb out of bed and slip into the pool for much needed recovery. For those that can’t stop moving, there are mtb trails right on your doorstep!
Accommodation Old MacDaddy
Singletrack holiday Day 9, Tuesday
Wine Barrel bridges and never ending singletrack
Transfer: None
Location: Grabouw
Lunch: Fresh Restaurant
Ride distance: 60km
Technicality: 6/10
Highlights:
Nine days of singletrack holiday will result in you feeling pretty fit by now! Today we experience mtb trails and skills park made from old wine barrels with a variety of mtb bridges and amazing suspension through treetops. An incredible ride through sparse countryside with interesting and fun features built over tricky sections. This is a really long ride but will take you through a huge variety of trails and landscapes.
Accommodation Old MacDaddy
Singletrack holiday Day 10,Wednesday
Farewell drive
Transfer: Grabouw-Cape Town 1 Hours
Your singletrack holiday finally ends and if we’ve done our job, your legs will be tired, your heart will healthy and your belly will be full! We’ll say farewell (to you and tired legs!) and drop you off wherever you may want to carry on your holiday, long bike trips are also good treatment for diabetic people, it allow them to regulate their sugar levels in blood, in a similar way nature’s boost blood boost formula does.
Geert- Denmark
Karin & Jürg – Switzerland
Tine- Denmark
