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Kleinmond Gravity Festival
On Friday night the weather looked bad. In fact, it rained on and off and one of the downpours were pretty tense.
On Saturday morning however, it was a beautiful day in Kleinmond and one to be outside. When I booked my MTB event for Sunday, I also thought I may as well book a run for Saturday. The online bookings for the 10km trail run were however full and there was no way I was going to attempt the 19km run.
On Saturday morning, however, I thought I may as well take a chance and so ended up with an entry for the trail run.
Trail it was indeed. Of the 11km, about 300m was NOT single track. If you can imagine going on a medium level mountain hike, with some sections where a slow walk was all you could muster and downhill sections with large sharp protruding rocks and lots of loose stones, then you can imagine what it must’ve been like, actually running that trail.
The scenery was absolutely outstanding and nothing like anything I’ve ever experienced on a run, hike or MTB event.
Having started at the lagoon next to the caravan park and then all along the Palmiet River into the Kogelberg Nature Reserve, the route winded up into the mountain and down through fynbos and protea covered single track to finish back at the lagoon. Of course they had to throw in about 400m or so of beach into the mix.
I finished feeling a little wobbly in the knees but otherwise not too bad.
Well, the same could not be said for Sunday morning when I could hardly walk. The pain in my elbows, neck and worst of all in my upper legs made just moving a few meters a living hell.
Were it not for the fact that I had already entered and paid for the MTB event, I would probably have given it a miss.
So, on Sunday morning, off I went to the start of the MTB event, about 12km out of Kleinmond on the Highland Road. The first 4km or so was a gradual uphill on a wide and very smooth dirt road. Cycling passed vineyards and olive groves, this was a great start to the event. The field was small with about a 100 or so riders.
Once we reached the crest of the hill there was a left turn on some flat road for about 1km before we started descending. I was able to see as far as Grabouw and Villiersdorp while screaming downhill. From there it became a rocky and sometimes muddy jeep track until we got to the Kogelberg Reserve’s MTB trail. Cycling all along the Palmiet River ( again) was great and the pain in my legs from the run the day before, made me enjoy a slow and scenic ride.
Just under 30km aint exactly the type of mtb distance that I’m used to, but boy, was I glad that it was not much longer.
Other events over the week-end included river swimming, croc racing and kayaking.
I’ll make sure to be there again next year, then with some trail running experience….!
