South-Afrika & Lesotho

Cycling the beloved country…

My first discovery of South-Afrika was in 2017, riding the Cape Epic with Mathias. The Cape Epic is a super professional full-service race, meaning that everything is taken care of from the start, for the pro’s but also for the many amateurs (https://www.cape-epic.com). Participating to the Cape Epic event was a never to forget mountain biking experience and it left me with the desire to come back to SA one day.

As such it was wonderful to gather with some 23 Belgian mountain bikers for the 2019 Joberg2C. The J2C is a non UCI multi stage mountain bike event, starting in the south of Johannesburg and finishing nine days and 900k later on the KwaZulu-Natal coast along the Indian Ocean: a spectacular ride in a true family spirit (https://www.joberg2c.co.za).

Once the ‘race’ was finished I packed my mountain bike with 2 Ortlieb bags and headed for 2000 more kilometers on a solo ride through the beloved country...

I started by heading north again over the magnificent Sani Pass into Lesotho. The track through Lesotho was filled with contrasts and emotions: the altitudes, the loneliness, the living conditions, the feelings of being “fragile but privileged”.

I entered South-Afrika again at the Sephapos Border Gate in the west of Lesotho and from Boesmanskop I followed gravel and tarmac roads through the Free State, the Karoo, the Garden Route and the unforgettable Mitchells Plain, all the way to “Cape of Good Hope”, a life changing ride…