I have just recently got into cycling properly in preparation for the Ironman 70.3 in East London in January and the full Ironman in Port Elizabeth in April next year. One of my biggest concerns and fears if you will has been riding on the road. The amount of traffic, small shoulders and the general state of our roads has been putting me off to be quite honest. I have been

spinning mostly and every now and then head out on the road but don’t really enjoy the experience.

Working on radio on weekend mornings also proves to be a challenge because I can’t head out really early and by the time I do get to ride traffic becomes an issue. A couple of mates have been on my case about going out during the week mid-morning’ish but I haven’t really been giving it much thought as I figured if the traffic on the weekend was bad it will be even worse during the week.

They managed to twist my rubber arm this morning. I’m so glad they did. We met at the Town Square shopping centre on Hendrick Potgieter road and headed out west until the R28. We turned right onto the R28 and then left towards Muldersdrit into the Cradle of Humankind.

We rode along that road until the T-junction and turned around and headed back the same way. We even stopped for a quick cup of coffee at a quaint little restaurant (whose name escapes me right now) on that road.

I thoroughly enjoyed our ride out there this morning and think I have found a place to ride that has great road surfaces, a wide shoulder (in places) but most importantly not much traffic. It is obviously a popular cycling route as we saw a whole bunch of cyclists in the area, even mid-morning on a Tuesday. I can’t wait to head out to the Cradle of Humankind again on Friday for a longer and hopefully more enjoyable ride.

Below are the details of the ride on Garmin Connect: