Ride Routes: Gravel Biking in Sabie

When Renault SA asked me to take the Triber on a micro-adventure up North, there was only one place I was headed. Mpumalanga, and the little town of Sabie.

Now the area is obviously most known for MTB and Trail Running but I wanted to head back to this area that I had visited so many times as a kid and explore the old routes and towns.

Some of my best childhood memories are from camping trips to Pilgrims Rest, pancakes in Graskop at the infamous Harries Pancakes, and exploring the areas around Hazy View. As I got into my teenage years I was heavily into road cycling,and enjoyed exploring the roads in the area. Now that I am older (and dare I say, wiser) I know gravel is where it is at, so it was time to explore once again but take the path less travelled.

The areas surrounding Sabie are massive forestry plantations so although there aren’t many gravel roads, like in the Karkloof, there are enough to link up a nice look starting and finishing in Sabie. There is still a lot of tar on the loop so I went with 40mm wide tyres to make the best of both worlds.

I started at Merry Pebbles in Sabie, a great place to stay over if you are in the area. They have an amazing campsite, as well as chalets, right on the Sabie river. The route starts with a casual ride through the indigenous forests along the banks of the Sabie river, before entering the Forestry Plantations. Once you start hitting the plantations, the road goes up, and it goes up forever! The first 70k of the loop felt like it never went downhill, and if it did, it was for a very short time before you found yourself climbing again. The tar road between Sabie and Pilgrims Rest is a pretty great road to ride but I wanted to get to Pilgrims Rest with as little tar as possible. If it wasn’t for the route I wanted to ride being closed I would have made it to Pilgrims without touching any tar, but unfortunately they were felling trees in the area I wanted to ride through, so I was forced to head down to the tar road and loop around them before joining back onto the gravel section. Thankfully I didn’t miss a lot of the original route, I just added a good 15k to an already long day.

With a short descent into Pilgrims and a quick resupply of snacks and water I headed out again, there is the option to climb Robbers Pass that takes you out to Lydenburg. A quick summit and then a turn around back towards Pilgrims Rest will add some nice elevation to your day. The climb back out of Pilgrims Rest on the other side of town is long but not crazy steep, at the time it feels like it goes on forever but once you get out of the tree line and you can see how far you have come out of the valley, it inspires you to keep pushing.

By the time I reached the top I was more than ready for a good lunch break, and the long steep descent towards Graskop was a welcome relief. If you have visited the area at all, you would know that there was only one place I was going to have lunch at in Graskop. Yes, the original and best Harries Pancakes. Lunches here as a kid were an absolute highlight for me. I had a proper sweet tooth as a kid so I would always have the most decadent one on the menu, whatever was sweetest. The pancakes were as good as I remember.

Sadly the towns aren’t what they used to be, they were once thriving tourist destinations with thousands of people moving through on their way to the Kruger National Park. Now with faster, more direct routes available, the towns are mere shells of what they once were. The roads have been destroyed by the logging trucks and with very little maintenance done on them, sadly the tour routes no longer come through these areas much anymore.

This was evident on my ride between Graskop and Hazy View, where there were some massive potholes that could have easily ended my ride if I didn’t stay alert, so if you opt to ride the route. Just keep aware that there could be a massive pothole at any moment, there were some small sections where they were repairing the road, but mostly the gravel roads are in better condition.

Getting to Hazy View was a treat, the intense heat and humidity had properly drained me so to stop and rest for the night was great. I opted to do the loop over two day, December beers and not much riding was too good to me… haha!

The last 40k of the loop is pretty gnarly, climbing almost 1200m from Hazy View back up to Sabie. Eventually though you meander the last bit of the ride with the Sabie river which was a cool relief in the crazy heat. Knowing the finish is just a little way up the same river was enough motivation to push the last bit and finally arrive at the Sabie Brewing Company. The first good beer I had had all ride, as craft beer isn’t super available in the area.

That Indian Pale Ale went down a treat!