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Home / Bike Rides / Gravel Ride to Caledon 23

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I got this route from Deon Meyer's book "Dirt Busters" and decided to tackle it today (also to break in my new front tyre). The weather was a perfect 27 degrees with no wind. The road was in pretty good condition and the only problem I had was a section being closed off with "No Trespassing" signs so I had to do a detour down a pretty dodgy track... nevertheless that is what it is all about, exploring new dusty roads. I decided to also try using the phone to navigate instead of my Garmin GPS and this did not turn out so well. Normally I use Waze which is fine in the city as you ant the fastest route (any route). Today I needed to hit specific waypoints and they were not in a direct line, so I found the navigation software telling me to go a different way, and when i didn't, it stopped giving me directions. So I had to try see the screen in the sun and spot the upcoming turns, which meant backtracking twice because I missed the turns (these gravel tracks don't have sign boards). Another interesting moment was with Van der Stel Pass road being closed... but I decided to push through anyway as I needed to find the geocache there and my navigation software was not giving me any alternatives (in fact it no longer could see any roads)... this worked out OK as only part of the road had subsided which made it difficult for cars... but a bike can squeeze through anywhere! So all in all a very good ride... I left about 09:30 and hit Caledon a bit after 14:30, taking it very easy along the way. After that I just followed the N2 tar road back to Cape Town....

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