Western Province Downhill Round #4 - Cascades

Last Sunday was Round 4 of the WP DH series, this time at a fresh new track in Paarl!

Words and photos by Eric Palmer.

We’ve been lucky enough to have amazing weather despite winter approaching and wake up to fresh crisp mornings that warm up as the day goes. Sunday was not one of those days! We were in for a very wet & muddy one.

I arrived a bit late coming from another shoot & by the time I got there the guys had gotten a few runs in & as they saw me approach with my bag ready to shoot all I got told was, “Don’t do it dude, it’s not worth it, the mud is knee deep in places.” & “I hope you don’t plan on keeping those shoes for very long… or those pants.” Well, all that did was make me more eager to see how bad it was! haha

I called shotgun on a shuttle up & had a few nice drifts around corners on the way up, with no effort I must add, the ground had a slick layer on top & made things a little more exciting than usual.

From where the shuttles dropped the riders there was a little bit of a push up to the very top of the track, but after speaking to some of the riders I decided to skip that & make my way down. There is an open section up top with an amazing view. As I stepped on track I went sliding & could put my skating experience to good use & skidded down to a small jump. After seeing & hearing the first rider squelch past me I had very little hope anyone would actually try to jump it. Low & behold, Francois did a few min later & as he preloaded he just pushed his tyre into the ground & the mud held onto his bike more than he would have liked. He had a serious case, but somehow survived.

Straight after the jump was a left hander down into the pine plantation. From there it felt like I was transported to a Scottish DH race, the mud was thick & sticky & combined with pine needles it was clogging bikes up to the point some of the guys couldn’t even pedal anymore. Some opted to stop and clean their bikes & others looked like they entered a DH pushbike race, running their bikes down. The guys were struggling like mad to keep speed with the bikes collecting more & more mud & getting heavier & heavier as they went & the slippery spots meant a lot more crashes, but luckily the landing was normally quite soft.

After the steepest section in the pines, there is a more mellow section with a big table into a small double & then a drop, over a bridge & onto a path that was probably the least muddy part of the track. With some heavy cranking the guys could get some mud off their wheels & get their bikes closer to their normal weight.

Then a drop back into the trail & straight to a hip jump. Most of the guys were still struggling to get speed & opted for the chicken run and a few that went for the hip were treated to a nice big case or slide down the landing. There was a road gap right after that, but it was a bit too dodgy landing on wood with tonnes of mud on the tyres, so it got closed off & riders were diverted to the chicken run. After that, all that was left between you & the finish was a flat all out pedal section through the olive orchard.

The mud separated the men from the boys & only the die hard riders stuck it out till race run, but in the end the top 3 were:

1st Theo Erlangsen

2nd Dane Olsen

3rd Adi Van Der Merwe

A HUGE thanks to Eckhardt, who has designed & built the entire track with only one friend and to Cascades Country Manor for allowing us to play on their beautiful property!