Schapenberg Half Black Trail Run

Our trail grading: ORANGE 5A

Distance: 15km

Extremeness: Awesome technical single track

Location: Schapenberg, Somerset West, South Africa

Joggers: Deryck Nel & me
GoPro operator: Freddie Bakkes (on his MTB)

Today we jogged half of the Schapenberg Black MTB route. We started with an easy climb next to the railway line and then crossed a vineyard or two on our way up to where an awesome single track starts. Even though we still climbed during the first part of the single track, I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of the fynbos that I forgot that I was jogging uphill. The uphill was followed by 3km of stunning downhill single track! The route flattened from here, following the railway line moving towards Sir Lowry's pass. At 12km we hit another uniquely different single track which we followed for 2km before heading back to our car. Freddie Bakkes, a keen mountain biker who did the Cape Epic last year, was so kind as to sacrifice his enjoyment of the single tracks to film us jogging downhill with his GoPro. We will be editing the video tomorrow and I will post it to this blog soon! Initial footage looks awesome!

Easy climb next to the railway line

The climb becoming less easy

Deryck and Freddie cutting through the vineyard

View of Sir Lowry's pass crossing the Hottentots-Holland mountain range

Interesting angle on Helderberg

Deryck negotiating some single track