CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Johannesburg it runs 317 km to Johannesburg; allow about 5 h 28 of riding. It goes by way of Sharpeville Memorial garden, Sharpeville Massacre Site: police station, The stromatolite/basal fault plane site and Vredefort Dome. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,650 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 77 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Johannesburg began with a rumour, and the rumour was gold. In 1886, a reef of it was found on the Witwatersrand, and within a decade a tented camp had become a city of mines, offices and shanties, the biggest in southern Africa. It sits on the Highveld at nearly 1,800 metres, which gives it a bright dry climate, cold winter nights and violent summer thunderstorms. Today it is a sprawling metropolis of over two million, with a lot of history to confront.
Read the complete Johannesburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Johannesburg is where the day begins. Next is Sharpeville Memorial garden.
On 21 March 1960, a crowd of several thousand people gathered outside the police station in Sharpeville, a township near Vereeniging in the south of Gauteng, to protest against the pass laws, which required black South Africans to carry documents restricting where they could live and work. The police opened fire, killing sixty nine people and wounding many more, most of them shot in the back as they fled. The massacre shocked the world and marked a turning point in the struggle against apartheid, leading to the banning of the liberation movements and the start of armed resistance. The date is now commemorated in South Africa as Human Rights Day, and internationally as the day for the elimination of racial discrimination.
Read the complete Sharpeville Memorial garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sharpeville Memorial garden comes up 43 km in. Next is Sharpeville Massacre Site: police station.
Sharpeville is a heavy place, and it should be approached quietly. On 21 March 1960, thousands of people gathered outside the police station to protest against the pass laws, which forced Black South Africans to carry documents controlling where they could live and work. The police opened fire on the crowd, and sixty-nine people were killed, many shot in the back as they fled. The massacre shocked the world, led to the banning of liberation movements in South Africa and hardened international opposition to apartheid.
Read the complete Sharpeville Massacre Site: police station write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
87 km in you reach Sharpeville Massacre Site: police station. Next is The stromatolite/basal fault plane site.
Microbes made this. That is the surprising thing about stromatolites: the layered, domed structures that look like cabbages turned to stone are the fossil remains of mats of bacteria that lived in shallow water and trapped sediment, growing layer on layer. They are among the oldest evidence of life on the planet, and the rocks around the Vredefort Dome in South Africa carry some very ancient examples.
Read the complete The stromatolite/basal fault plane site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The stromatolite/basal fault plane site, about halfway. Next is Vredefort Dome.
A hundred and fifty kilometres from Johannesburg, the ground rises into a ring of low hills about seventy kilometres across, and that ring is the surviving core of the largest meteorite impact the Earth has kept a record of. Vredefort Dome formed about two billion years ago, when an asteroid several kilometres wide hit what was then a very different landscape. The structure was once perhaps three hundred kilometres across, and erosion since has scraped most of it away, leaving the central uplift visible. UNESCO listed it in 2005.
Read the complete Vredefort Dome write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vredefort Dome sits at 174 km, about halfway. Next is back through The stromatolite/basal fault plane site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The stromatolite/basal fault plane site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The stromatolite/basal fault plane site comes up 217 km in. Next is back through Sharpeville Massacre Site: police station.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sharpeville Massacre Site: police station write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
260 km in you reach back through Sharpeville Massacre Site: police station. Next is back through Sharpeville Memorial garden.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sharpeville Memorial garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sharpeville Memorial garden, late in the day. Next is Johannesburg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Johannesburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 317 km.
Johannesburg → Sharpeville Memorial garden is 77 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sharpeville Massacre Site: police station → The stromatolite/basal fault plane site is 84 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The stromatolite/basal fault plane site → Vredefort Dome is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vredefort Dome → back through The stromatolite/basal fault plane site is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The stromatolite/basal fault plane site → back through Sharpeville Massacre Site: police station is 84 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Sharpeville Memorial garden → Johannesburg is 77 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.