The cycles of life
Claire Keeton and Marianne Schwankhart take a bike tour through Khayelitsha and the Cape Town city centre
THE sizzle of grilling meat from Braai Mambongi almost derailed our cycling tour through Khayelitsha — Marianne and I had got going at dawn.
But the metallic tang of a heap of smileys (sheep’s heads), staring up with a bloody grin next to cauldrons, was easier to resist.
Khayelitsha resident Skeezo Vicani, in a purple top and red shoes, was our charismatic guide for two Bike & Saddle tours. Sightseeing on a bike is faster and can cover more ground than on foot.
With Skeezo in pole position, Marianne and I bounced through the streets of the Bo-Kaap and Khayelitsha, switching road bikes for mountain bikes when we shuttled from the Cape Town city bowl to the Cape Flats.
Our first stop in Khayelitsha was the Velokhaya Life Cycling Academy, which is worth a visit. This cycling club started in 1999 with only a few bikes and members. These days, it has its own BMX track and has trained elite riders who compete internationally.
The academy serves as a base for rides, which include the Look Out Hill Tourism Centre, a braai marketplace and Khayelitsha’s backbone, Spine Road.
Bike & Saddle tours is an “ecoactive” company that organises a range of cycling, hiking and paddling trips. Most of the cyclists who join the trips are foreigners, Skeezo said.
“The tours give me an opportunity to meet people of different cultures. They also give people an opportunity to understand the culture of people in the townships.”
These tours are an easy way for South Africans to explore their cities and communities.
“Township tours” took off in the late 1980s under the Institute for a Democratic Alternative in SA, at a time of apartheid segregation and repression. The first time I met a tour group while visiting friends in Nyanga, it was a novelty.
When my friend Buyiswa Jack moved from Nyanga to Khayelitsha, I attended her son’s post-initiation celebration there and her husband’s funeral at the Lookout Hill Tourism Centre.
But this bike tour to Lookout Hill was a cheerful occasion, coinciding with a traditional-dance competition.
Skeezo led us on the short hop from the academy to Lookout, where we left our bikes in a foyer near the craft market.
We walked up a battered boardwalk to the top of a dune, with a view over the settlement towards the Hottentots-Holland mountains and over False Bay.
Lookout Hill is a Khayelitsha landmark at the crossroads of Mew Road and Spine Road.
We pedalled along Spine Road, abuzz with enterprise from braai places to hair salons and spaza shops. In one block we passed Peter’s Hair, Grace Hair and Ernest Hair next to a “Baber & Shoe Repair” stall.
The braai marketplace had more than 10 stalls with half drums of coals and stacks of meat and pap. The wooden tables and benches with Coke umbrellas were empty in the morning.
From here we meandered through Section D, across a railway bridge, back to Velokhaya.
“Cycling is changing the lives of many young kids from the township,” said Skeezo.
The cycling club’s star is Luthando Kaka, who represented SA in the Youth Commonwealth Games, before joining a professional team in Denmark for two seasons. Now he is the captain of Bonitas Team, a professional roadcycling team based in Joburg.
Skeezo, 36, likes speed but his true passion is guiding.
The City Heritage tour he leads in the shadow of Table Mountain follows an historic route on steep roads. On that route, we pedalled along the Fan Walk, uphill to De Waterkant village and across to Long Street, then climbed the cobbled streets of the Bo-Kaap and freewheeled back to the V&A Waterfront, where we had begun.
Skeezo recounted South Africa’s history while we passed the Cape Town Stadium and headed into the city.
We stopped for coffee in Long Street but it started to drizzle, which meant we bypassed the Company Gardens, Parliament, the National Gallery and the Castle.
But we did admire the traditional architecture and 10 mosques of the Bo-Kaap, where South Africa’s oldest mosque can be found.
From this old quarter — now a popular photographic hub — we returned to the Waterfront, where Skeezo waved us farewell.