Trail revamp at Rhodes Memorial, Table Mountain

Mountain bike trails, many of us live for these sculptured tracks of dirt. But where do they come from? Who’s building them? And why don’t we know? While I won’t be going into why many South African mountain bikers can’t answer these fundamental questions, I will be pointing out who’s responsible for the most recent modifications to the Rhodes Memorial single track on Table Mountain.

Robert Vogel, of Table Mountain Bikers and member of the PPA Executive Committee looking after the mountain biking portfolio, has spearheaded the revamping of the top Rhodes Memorial single track. The trail runs down from the bottom of Plum Pudding Hill, behind the SANParks offices. The build is currently underway and should be completed as soon as tomorrow or was completed on 3 September 2014 (depending on when you stumble upon this article).

The trail is an important link for all riders to access Plum Pudding Hill from the Newlands Forest side of the mountain. Because of this function, the trail must be relatively rideable for all skill levels.

Anyone who has ridden this section recently will know that the trail has taken a beating from the rain during winter and has become very rutted and rocky. As a result, there have been a number of complaints that the trail was too difficult for many riders.

Thanks to permission and some provision of materials from SANParks and funding allocated by Pedal Power Association to the Table Mountain Bikers, Robert Vogel has been able to enlist the services of the Bennet Nel and the rest of the Ace of Spades team. If you’ve ridden the Jonkershoek trails, he’s the man you must thank.

There were three mains aims with the trail revamp:

1. Make the trail easily rideable for the majority of riders on the mountain to access Plum Pudding Hill;
    
2. Provide adequate drainage so that the trail doesn’t get washed out by rain; and
    
3. To add a few interesting features.

To improve the rideability of the trail, Bennet will remove a number of rocks and smooth out the eroded ruts in the upper parts of the trail. Making the flow of the trail much more manageable for less adventurous riders.

To prevent the trail from becoming a river again, a drainage channel is being constructed on the jeep track just before the trail head to divert the flow.

In addition to the above changes, a fun switchback berm has been added to the end of the trail.

We’re hoping to have pictures of the completed build up soon but, if you ride the trail and have more recent photos or videos, please post them in the comments or forum topic.

We’ve also heard whisperings of a whole new trail system going up on the slopes of Table Mountain. We hope to have the latest updates if/ when this trail construction breaks ground.

UPDATE 05/09/2014: I rode up and down the completed trail this morning and recorded the below video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtP9btc5Pp0&