The 94.7 Cycle Tour


The Karoo2Coast experience didn't work out as planned, but at least the post-K2C fitness levels were good and I stepped up the training to have a proper go at the 94.7.
But then live happened....

Getting home after the Durbie Dash end of  October, I experienced some chest pains. Soon after I was admitted to intensive care in the Panorama Heart Unit with a suspected torn heart muscle. "Luckily" the damage wasn't as bad as we initially feared but it meant a few weeks off the bike and thereafter a considerable downsizing of my cycling program and the start of the journey on a long road to (hopefully) full recovery.

As all the arrangements for doing the 94.7 were already made I decided to still ride, just at half the pace I initially planned to do it. So I teamed up with my brother Pieter, my Sani2C partner who just recently had his first-born which also, like a heart condition, is not conducive to proper training schedule.

I landed on the Friday, on Saturday the bike was re-assembled and Pieter and I went for a quick warm-up ride round Aasvoelkop and I was glad to see  the bike & heart held in the unfamiliar conditions of the Highveld.

Hallo Joburg!

Early Sunday-morning we were off to the Riversands Estate which hosted the 94.7, the traffic was gridlocked from kilometers away but luckily we weren't too fussed about our starting group as it was going to be a social day. Group F was the first group we managed to arrive at and at 6h40 we were off. The pace in the group was quite relaxed (at least compared to the pace I'm used too), I was riding with one eye on the heart monitor as I had no intention to spend another night in a heart unit.

The first few kilometers are mostly rolling hills through semi-rural areas. With Johannesburg very green this time of the year due to the summer rains it makes for a pleasant ride through the outskirts of Kyalami into Sunninghill. Despite our relative slow pace, to my annoyance my heart rate was creeping up to about 90% of my max heart rate, despite us taking it slowly.

At Woodmead we got onto the M1 South highway, some cyclists consider it boring but the idea of legally cycling on a 4 lane highway with no cars is quite exciting to me. The going towards the city centre was easy but after my crash at the  Karoo2Coast I didn't quite have faith in the group riding abilities of those around me and I stuck to the side of the group. Once again my premonition was correct as bizarrely a few cyclists at the front of our group managed to collide despite having a whole highway to themselves. But the luck that deserted me at Karoo2Coast was on duty on the day and we avoided the small pile-up and continued on our way to the Joburg city centre.

Nelson Mandela Bridge
As we approached the city centre I noticed my heart rate stabilised and I finally started to relax as we hit the climb at The Wilds into Hillbrow. Riding through the run-down landscape of Hillbrow past the Ponte tower into the city is another unique experience, defintely not a place you would cycle on any other day of the year. We passed through Ghandi square, got back on the highway, got off again and acrossed the iconic Nelson Mandela bridge into Braamfontein.  Then it was a fast descent past my old school of Helpmekaar into the suburbs of Saxonwold and Rosebank.

The pace down Jan Smuts drive was fast and the road bumpy and twisty which was a bit nerve-wrecking but soon enough we got to Randburg and a few biggish climbs brought the pace down. The last few kilometers my heart rate stayed steady and the route up Malibongwe was fairly mundane compared to the earlier part of the race. The final stretch went through the brand new vanity project of some Steyn guy called Steyn City, a brand new development but with nothing yet to see bar a few gates and fences.

So after 3h08m Pieter and I rolled over the finish line, my first 94.7 experience successfully navigated without ending up in hospital. We had a few post-race beers and I'm glad to tick of this experience, not quite the Cape Argus but a very enjoyable race in it's own right. If I recover fully I hope to get the chance to race the route properly one day.







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