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Right guys now go through the city of take it easy once we are on the bigger roads and start rolling 15 km coffee stop good morning welcome to stellin BOS here in South Africa This is my first time visiting South Africa and obviously I’m here to do the Cape Town cycle tour and that’s happening in a couple of days but in the meantime we’re just going out on a few practice rides around the area and just getting our legs used to

Riding and wearing shorts again even though it’s only very early month Mar it’s obviously very oh it’s um late summer very early Autumn here and uh and the temperature is very Nice the plan today is to go and do a nice easy ride I’m riding with uh Ingo from equators and a group of friends and subscribers and the route is going to be about 40 km with about 400 m of climbing so nothing desperately hard but it’s

Just enough to get the legs working get us used to the roads here in South Africa and just have an absolutely fantastic time and here’s our first little rise [Applause] now although I said we do have a very nice temperature and indeed we do it’s about 25° C as you can probably see it’s not all that Sunny which suits me at the moment um but it is forecasting Thunder storms a bit later so yeah at least the

Rain is going to be warm hopefully we’ll get away with it but if not I do have a rain jacket in the uh in the support vehicle that’s following [Applause] us Joining me today on the road we’ve got some familiar faces with Barbara and gram and Oscar who came out to Italy and France we’ve got Dominic and Wendy from the UK although Dominic is actually from South Africa and then we’ve got um Michael and Susanna but they haven’t joined us this morning hopefully

They’ll join us [Applause] Tomorrow Well here we are at the first coffee stop got Bram here he’s one of our guides you’re from the Netherlands aren’t you Bram I am H how long you been out here uh about 8 years wow I love it good imagine the weather’s a bit different from the Netherlands uh you

Brought the B weather today but we have haven’t we it will be better I promise good so this is our coffee stop here and this is the view apparently just over there is Table Mountain and the City of Cape Town but although it’s nice and sunny

Here now it is a little bit hazy so unfortunately we just didn’t get the view sorry the area around stellin Bosch is all Vineyard and wine production we’ve just had our tea stop at one of these Vineyards apparently it’s worth the uh worth the journey it was certainly a

Climb up here at one point it peaked out like 14% it was only 2 kilometers but it was uh tough enough thank you very much so having just climbed up to the winery we’ve just uh done our descent and that was pretty uh spectacular the smells were incredible I

Could smell the the the wine and stuff being made I thought I could even smell the eucalyptus trees pine trees absolutely Incredible Apparently the rest of our ride today is all going to be downhill but that was just a quick cheeky little climb there I love the style of the houses over here so kind of Evocative as you can see on the roads it has rained a little bit but the temperature is 16 C and it’s very very pleasant compare that to the weather right now at home in the UK and it’s 4° wet and windy and pretty miserable another little climb here I

Don’t know if you can see it on camera but um I think it’s one of these false kind of steep climes how often have you cycled along you’ve seen a road just looming up in the distance and then when you get there it’s nowhere near as bad as you think I

Think it’s that kind of squashed perspective that we we talk about in um photography and [Applause] Stuff to get a smaller smaller water bottle or a bigger Char good a quick little regroup there and that climb wasn’t quite as I thought I certainly felt it it was like 5% but it it wasn’t bad at all hello the more Eagle eyed of you may have

Noticed that we are riding on the left hand side of the road here and that’s because here in South Africa what with it being um an old British colony they also ride on the left and if you’re wondering if that feels any easier or difficult for me well no not

Really obviously riding on the left is what I do naturally but because I’m also away my mind also wants me to ride on the right hand side of the road and it’s it’s taking a little bit of thinking getting used to riding on the left and being abroad Ironically Picking up a little bit of wind now but uh it’s all good I’m sating the group trying to Shield myself from the wind as best I Can this is definitely the downhill bit that Ingo was talking about very pleasant even though it start raining again a little bit but it’s only just R and it’s already trying to dry up I think fantastic generally speaking I would say the roads here in South Africa so far

Have been slightly better than in the UK particularly on these more main roads and the other thing that I’ve been impressed with is these very wide shoulders so we as cyclists can ride in them and we’re very well separated from the main Traffic ooh a eucalyptus grow don’t see those in the UK that often are we going to watch him changing the fire who Oscar or brown no nobody k for 2 km we’ll put it on the on the van go in and uh and I’ll fix it at probably wise yeah nice and dry

Yeah I hope it’s not the tire so much on the on the road yeah Oscar I think you need to go Tess the way it looks uh they need to clean up the the road Dear Mr Mandela Oscar says there we go that’s our first mechanical puncture had to be roads are

A bit um bit of debris in the roads but we got the truck so Oscar’s going in the truck Oscar’s going in the truck all that’s Oscar safely on the truck uh I’ve become a little detached from the group but I’m riding in with Bram who’s

Uh taking up the back marker here so it’s Bram and me now thank you so today was just a bit the orientation right Y and yeah tomorrow we start actually the loading time 7:45 as of 7:45 to Spring the bikes out or before you go to breakfast reload the bikes cuz 8:00 you

Want to shoot off we do a transfer to Willington rather we have enough time and from there on we go up and up then on the other so tomorrow is basically no traffic just couple of couple of baboons that’s it well there we go that’s today’s ride done and dusted uh

45 km and 5 127 M of climbing in the Bank of Fitness fantastic day uh here in uh Stellenbosch first ever ride in South Africa very impressed very very pleasant ride shame that it did rain a little bit but um the uh it didn’t rain for very long and we

Guaranteed almost fantastic sunny weather from here on in hopefully here’s the gang I think they had a good day Oscars made it back in time so yeah onwards and upwards for tomorrow I think tomorrow’s a little bit further and a little bit more challenging Bring It On