Bicycling and motorbikes: just say no
Listen up, especially if you are a Dutch tourist: cycling in South Africa will get you killed. Please do not arrive here with romantic notions of pedalling around the metropolitan areas and exploring the cities by your own motive power. Do not hire a motorbike or scooter to get around. Our emergency medical facilities are stretched thin as it is and we don’t want your corpse adding to the load.
What you certainly can do is take a guided bicycle tour of Soweto, or potter about the Natal midlands on a tandem bike. The winelands outside Cape Town are perhaps best viewed from the back of a rented Harley Davidson. Or, if you time your visit right, something like the massive Cycle Tour in Cape Town or the Cycle Challenge in Joburg is great fun (and perfectly safe thanks to all the roads being closed for the events). In other words, rural is fine, organised groups are great and big events are perfect. But alone, in the cities, you are just so much roadkill waiting to happen.
It’s not that South Africans are particularly evil or anything. Our cities just aren’t built with bicyclists in mind, for a variety of reasons. There are no bike lanes anywhere (the few experimental ones are so rare that motorists often don’t understand what they are), there are no bike racks anywhere (except rusted relics at a few schools) and South African drivers have no experience in dealing with bicyclers. Also, us city-bound Safrican drivers tend to be in a hell of a hurry, and aggressive to boot. This is not a combination you are likely to survive.
If you do head out to experience the rural tranquil on the back of a bicycle – and especially if you are Dutch – remember that most of South Africa isn’t flat. In this case, “not flat” should be read as “holy shit, did you see the size of that mountain?” We have mountain passes that have speed limits, on the uphill side, simply to keep your head from exploding due to explosive decompression. Check a contour map before planning your route, or suffer the aching-muscle consequences.
Naturally, the mountains make for some amazing mountain biking. If that is your thing then check out some of the adventure routes on offer, and events like the Cape Epic.
