77km Three Passes Cycle Tour – a training run for the Cape Argus Cycyle Tour

My Valentine’s Day star­ted, not with break­fast in bed, but with my alarm clock shrill­ing at 5.30am.  The reason for this mad­ness was that I was about to take part in my first ever cycle race; the 77km Three Passes Cycle Tour.  With only four weeks to go until I take part in my second ever cycle race; The Cape Argus Cycle Tour – this train­ing run was of abso­lute necessity ...

Taking in the splend­our of the Southern Suburbs, the race star­ted (and ended) at The Cape Academy of Mathematics, Science and Technology in Tokai and after arriv­ing at about 6.20am the num­ber of cyc­lists tak­ing part in this event meant that first time riders like myself only got out of the start­ing blocks about an hour later.

After leav­ing the Academy, the route made its way past Steenberg Golf Estate before tak­ing a right and begin­ning the long (oh so long) and steep (oh so steep) climb up and over Ou Kaapse Weg.  As this was my first ride and train­ing so far has con­sisted of a 45 minute spin­ning class once a week I was rather proud of myself for get­ting half way up this beast of a hill before hav­ing to get off and push!  Although slightly embar­rassed when a very young child came whizz­ing past me on the uphill, push­ing did give me the oppor­tun­ity to appre­ci­ate the mag­ni­fi­cent view of Constantia, Tokai, Lakeside and the Wetlands below me.

Once over Ou Kaapse Weg I was rewar­ded with a very wel­come down­hill stretch which brought me up to and through Kommetjie and then car­ried on through Misty Cliffs and Scarborough.  The False Bay coast­line is just beau­ti­ful and it’s espe­cially beau­ti­ful when one is able to appre­ci­ate it from a bicycle; being able to cycle in the deli­cious shade of the moun­tain, breath­ing in the misty sea air and smelling the fyn­bos.  My bad mood caused by my chain com­ing off a few kilo­metres earlier evap­or­ated imme­di­ately as I took in the sights around me; the sea looked spec­tac­u­lar as the sun shimmered off it.

From this point we turned ‘inland’ and made our way towards the entrance of the Cape Point Nature Reserve – although we no longer had a sea view, the view of the moun­tains and hun­dreds of Protea bushes all along the road was gor­geous.  How lucky Capetonians are to live in such a pristine area.

By this stage I had done close on 40kms and my legs were begin­ning to feel the effects.  However, just around the corner was another very wel­come down­hill towards Smitswinkel Bay.  One would be for­given for think­ing one was in Greece because the sea here really does have a Mediterranean look about it – abso­lutely tur­quoise blue and very clear.  I was almost temp­ted to go for a swim!

The route now hit Main Road and made its way past Millers Point, Boulders Beach and then through Simons Town.  All along the way people were walk­ing out in the sun­shine, kayak­ing on the water, I went past a group of scuba divers suit­ing up to see what lies below the ocean’s sur­face and there were a num­ber of Celtic Harriers run­ners out too!

Although Simons Town was not the end of the route I ended here (I had a birth­day party to get too and time was run­ning out!) but after cyc­ling 60kms on no train­ing I thought I’d done pretty well!  If I had car­ried on though the last 17 or so kilo­metres would have gone through Fish Hoek and into Kalk Bay before turn­ing left onto Boyes Drive.  Cyclists would then have a short dis­tance from the end of Boyes Drive back to Tokai and the end at the Academy.

I how­ever jumped into the car and devoured the deli­cious bread rolls my very kind and thought­ful hus­band had packed for me and made my way home for a shower and then onto Chapman’s Peak Hotel for a much deserved steak!  I thor­oughly enjoyed my intro­duc­tion to cyc­ling though and will be back – hope­fully all the way to top of Ou Kaapse next time around!