*A wholesome feeling when your e-Bike batteries are charged from solar power*

 As the world was racing to shut itself down as a result of the fear of COVID 19, it seemed to make sense after all the safety precautions been publicised, to skip my scheduled training session in the gym this morning.

 I am fortunate to have a gym in a Club that also has an 8km cycle route and yet is not far from the centre of the town CBD in Sandton.

 'So Chris, the trainer, and I set off and it was exhilarating. 

 What made it especially enjoyable is that my wife and I decided to move off the largely coal-fired utility grid last month and so the batteries for the e-Bikes were charged from our solar power system.

 Johannesburg and Sandton are very hilly. You need to be fit to ride a bicycle here. But an e-Bike makes the city seem as flat as Amsterdam! Knowing it is powered by the sun made it all the sweeter. I see a big future for e-Bikes here

Fresh air solution to COVID 19

# The Extraordinary Don't Let the Old Man In e-bike tour

*Only hours before the tour started, Hugh Butler got back on a bicycle for the first time since he last rode in the 1950s. This time it was on an e-Bike. Four days later he cycled almost not stop up the 1500m Swartberg Pass in the Karoo, South Africa with nine others - and he was not the oldest.*

Octogenarian Robin Binckes of Johannesburg was so impressed with his first experience on an e-Bike with e-Biking Africa in the Groenkloof Nature Reserve that he bought his own e-bike and persuaded nine others to throw off the shackles of old age and join him cycling. The route was through the Karoo and over and through the Western Cape's spectacular passes on quiet gravel roads dating back to the 1740s.

Shrugging off dizzy spells, cracked ribs and other ailments, a group of his friends that had no e-biking experience joined him on the "Don't Let The Old Man In" Tour.

The Karoo is open, quiet and blessed with a huge number of boutique lodges and guest houses for people wanting to enjoy its extraordinary hospitality, flora, scenery and peace.

Robin concludes that the tour was the most enjoyable 8 days of his eventful 80 years. The e-biking was just part of it. It was the people he met and the people on the tour that made it so special.

The tour bikes were sponsored by E-Biking Africa which operates half-day activities in a nature reserve in Gauteng and e-Biking experiences where tourists e-bike Cape Point, the top of Table Mountain National Park and the Winelands. They offer small group guided tours aimed at first-time e-Bikers and customised small group tours of the Karoo Passes.

The extraordinary Don't Let the Old Man In e-bike tour

# Departing SA late? Turn travel day into a highlight

*Many long haul flights depart late at night from Johannesburg and Cape Town. Make your last travel day a highlight day by ending with a gentle afternoon e-Bike ride in nature in either city.*

The wonder of travelling to South Africa is that you have dinner, fall asleep and when you wake up you are there. Over 80 percent of intercontinental flights are overnight - and like this.

Now there is a fresh activity for travellers returning home on one of the many late night flights that only depart at 9 pm or later. 

To beat the blues of hanging around the airport, Ebiking Africa ([www.e-biking.co.za](http://www.e-biking.co.za/)) is offering travellers the option of a guided tour where they are shown how to ride an e-Bike and then taken through a spectacular natural setting in a proclaimed nature reserve or private wine estate.

Said Beth van der Walt, sales manager: The exhilarating 2 to 3 hour experience can be customised according to their flight time so that they arrive at the airport at least 3 hours before their flight.

There are eight wide-body flights that leave Johannesburg at 10pm or later. Here the option for passengers is to go e-Biking in one of the world’s oldest proclaimed reserves. Groenkloof Nature Reserve is three minutes off the Johannesburg - Pretoria highway and 30 minutes from OR Tambo Airport.

In Cape Town they can choose to e-Bike with a professional guide on top of Table Mountain Panorama route at Silvermine or in the winelands with a final wine tasting at Boschendal.

There are four flights departing Cape Town around 9pm and later but with the traffic the experience needs to start not later than 2:30pm, said Beth.

The small guided tour is for a minimum of two and a maximum of 6.

Late flights out of Johannesburg include United, Delta, KLM, El Al, BA, Emirates, Qantas and Ethiopian. Late out of Cape Town are Delta, KLM, BA and United.

The cost of the experience includes the e-Bikes, guide, helmets and wet weather gear and park entrance fees. In Johannesburg it is R1650 per person, Table Mountain Panorama route is R2200 and Boschendal R1975.

Although Ebiking Africa offers daily departures in the morning in Cape Town and Johannesburg, the afternoon experience is customised and by arrangement.

Beth can be contacted at [sales@e-biking.co.za](mailto:sales@e-biking.co.za). The product is commissionable to the trade.

Departing SA late? Turn travel day into a highlight

Most visitors see the Johannesburg metropolis just as a mining and business hub.

 

Yet its residents mostly love living here. Apart from the buzz and being the centre of business opportunity, it is characterized by ridges and undulating hills covered in trees. Gardens are bigger than average and trees for shade are the first things homeowners plant since the discovery of gold here in 1896.

 

Its trees and gardens are its Green Capital. One should put a value on its greenery.

 

Joburgers believe they also have the world's best climate. What does this mean? Outdoor activities like e-biking or golf, for that matter, can be enjoyed year-round like in no other city.

 

Take golf, for instance, I tee-off first thing on Saturday mornings with a group of friends. Firstly we play every week including in winter. It might be very cold when we tee-off but by the time we finish, we would expect the clear winter sunshine to have warmed up the temperature to around 18 degrees. Put another way, by avoiding summer afternoon thunderstorms and playing in the morning out of 52 weeks we would expect to play in shorts 48 or them and for the rain to interrupt play about 6 times. The wind is seldom a factor.

 

But its Green Capital should also include the air quality. At least in summer. I have an Awair air quality measure in the system. It measures five aspects of the air and gives a score out of 100. Anything over 80 is good. 60 to 80 is fair. It takes into account the amount of dust, chemicals and carbon dioxide in the air. It also values temperature and humidity. Since I have been measuring air quality in November it has not dropped below 80. Is it because of the altitude (1700 m)? The greenery? Then this week it touched a perfect 100 for the first time. Whatever the cause it's perfect air quality to go e-Biking!

Air quality in summer is extraordinary

# Birthday for one of world’s first reserves

*The first nature reserve proclaimed by President Paul Kruger and one of the first in the world celebrated its 125th birthday recently.*

The e-Biking.co.za team made a birthday cake for their colleagues working at Groenkloof Nature Reserve on the edge of Pretoria to mark the occasion.

A fearless warrior himself, President Paul Kruger of the Dutch-speaking independent South African Republic was a leading African statesman and military figure. Largely self-taught to read from the bible, he was a pious man who fought in his first military engagement at the age of 11. Although he claimed not to hate the British, he somehow often thwarted British colonial ambitions. A superb athlete and very in touch with his own people, he served as president for four terms before being driven into exile by British forces in 1900. Widely admired by Europeans, there are more streets named after him in European cities than any South African other than Nelson Mandela.

He was also a conservation visionary. Since 1884 he had the vision to start what is today known as the Kruger National Park – a reserve now twice the size of Yellowstone in the USA and much larger than he himself ever imagined.

But before he did that, in 1895 he proclaimed what is today Groenkloof Nature Reserve on the edge of Pretoria in a bid to save the shy buck known as the Oribi. As a result, there exists today in almost the centre of a city, a 600-hectare site that is in effect a time capsule going back to the stone age.

Birthday for one of world’s first reserves

# There is weather and then there is Cape weather

*The fun of testing weather in a weather chamber...*

Let it be said at the outset that Capetonians love their weather and many even like walking when it is drizzling!

 But it should also be understood that the Cape climate is different from the rest of South Africa. It is the only part of the country to have wet winters. 

 Looking South, combine a warm ocean coming down from the left clashing with a cold ocean coming down from the right. This is what gives South Africa so much diversity. In winter combine it with gales from the roaring forties just to the South and the winter rain and you will see why it was originally called the Cape of Storms.

 It is not often all the elements come together, mostly it just drizzles and out in the fynbos or walking along the seafront, that's just fine.

We decided though that we do not want to be deterred from operating each time the weather changes so we need to offer our e-Bikers waterproof gear that will hold up to what the Cape might throw at us.

 That is where Cape Union Mart's weather chambers at Century City came in. What fun we had trying out different gear and entering the chamber that combined all the elements with driving wind and rain and even thunder and lightning. All three partners participated as we narrowed down the weather suits to the best for the job.

There is weather and then there is Cape weather

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We wish you a happy and safe trip and hope you have a great experience with us.

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# How did e-Biking start?

Construction manager Bill Schaerer and travel publisher Dave Marsh have been friends since their high school days in Johannesburg.

**IT STARTED IN THE KAROO**

Both of them have travelled extensively, but the one holiday that has stood out for both was at home in South Africa cycling with friends through the Karoo surrounded by the wild game in nature reserves.

With the only sound of the soft crunch of the wheels in the sand, they covered a lot of ground and saw a lot of game in natural wide-open spaces. It was a soulful experience.

The problem was that they were then sixty years old and some had not been on a bicycle for 40 years. Pedalling up to 50 km a day was a challenge. The tour was set up for people who cycled regularly.

**KNYSNA WAS AN EYE OPENER**

Then came planning a trip with another group of friends through Tuscany. This time everyone was going on e-Bikes. Dave and his wife went down to friends in Knysna to try out e-Bikes in preparation.

What a difference. ***Neither of them are athletes and there they were eating up the kilometres without much sweat.***

With the realization that e-Bikes make the world seem flat, it dawned on Bill and Dave that they could put back in a way that was important to them. Sharing the exhilaration of e-Biking in natural surroundings. Doing it in a way that benefits the local community and conservation.... and it is something Gauteng needs more of – a fresh experience.

One Reserve recommended by the mountain bike clubs for having the best nature and game in Gauteng and being very accessible was Groenkloof Nature Reserve in Tshwane. Less than five minutes from the closest high-speed Gautrain station in Pretoria and just off the highway to Johannesburg, it is perfect for half-day experiences and easy to be included in the popular Pretoria tours.

Thus, was born a new experiential activity in Gauteng.

Covid 19 stopped things in their tracks. But with that came time to plan.

This super-efficient tourism e-commerce platform hosting our website was set up for us by Go4IT Africa. Their CEO, James Elstob, had been urging us to also start something in Cape Town as a natural fit for our brand.

 

**A WILD CHILD**

We turned to a Cape-based friend. Dave and Bill knew Beth van der Walt since she had grown up motoring rough across the mountains of Lesotho on quad bikes with her father, another old school friend. Beth had gone on to get a degree as well as a tourism diploma and immersed herself in tourism marketing and sales. She moved to Cape Town and worked for a destination management company specialising in the Benelux and French markets.

Beth and her husband Ross advised on routes and what the overseas market wanted to such an extent that when it became clear that we should go ahead with a three-day program to "e-Bike the Cape's Big 3 Icons", it was natural to bring her in as a partner to run Cape operations.

About

E-Biking, Made Easy

Most of our guests have never ridden an e-bike before.

It allows people of different fitness levels to ride easily together even up hills. You may no longer have a bicycle, but if you have ridden one before and are comfortable getting back on, then e-Biking is “better than easy” as Jason, one of our first-time riders said. An e-Bike is simply an ordinary bicycle with a slimline battery that you might not notice at first glance and a small electric motor. Before we set out, we take a few minutes to do the “conversion” from an ordinary bicycle.

There are no predators in the reserves but cycling is a dangerous activity so we take safety measures.

Although e-Biking is exhilarating, this is also a nature experience so your guide will set a relatively slow pace with frequent stops to share what makes the sightings so interesting.

Have you ever envied the people of Amsterdam commuting on bicycles through a flat city? Well, what thrills people is that eBikes effectively make the world flat. From the moment you change down a gear and go up the first rise, you are likely to be thrilled at the ease of it.

All guests must follow the speed of the guide for safety purposes. These e-Bikes can go up to 32 kph, which is double the speed we average so the first safety rule is not to overtake the guide.

Our guided tours avoid public roads where possible and use roads and trails in Reserves or on private property.

small

Prepare to visit one of the world’s oldest nature reserves. Groenkloof Nature Reserve, five minutes drive from the high-speed Gautrain station in Pretoria, was the vision of the same person who laid the foundation of the Kruger National Park.

Paul Kruger was possibly one of the most notable military and influential statesmen in Africa in the 1800s.

He was also a conservation visionary. On 25 February 1895 as president of the independent Dutch-speaking South African Republic (also known as the Transvaal), he proclaimed Groenkloof its first nature conservation reserve.

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