CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. 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.
A 140 km round trip from Johannesburg - roughly 2 h 37 in the saddle. The stops in between: 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West, Sterkfontein and back through 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,650 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Constitution Hill sits on a ridge between Braamfontein and Hillbrow in central Johannesburg, and few places in South Africa carry so much history in so small a space. The Old Fort here was built in the 1890s under Paul Kruger's Transvaal Republic, and it soon became a notorious prison. Over the following decades the complex, including the infamous Number Four section for black men and the Women's Jail, held thousands of people, from ordinary criminals to political prisoners. Mahatma Gandhi was detained here in the early twentieth century, and Nelson Mandela was held in the Old Fort in the 1960s.
Read the complete Constitution Hill write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Constitution Hill is where the day begins. Next is 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West.
Orlando West looks ordinary at first: tidy brick houses, kids in school uniform, taxis hooting at every corner, smoke from braai stands curling over the street. It is in Soweto, about fifteen kilometres southwest of central Johannesburg, and on the morning of 16 June 1976 these were the streets where thousands of schoolchildren marched against being taught in Afrikaans. Police opened fire. Among the first killed was twelve-year-old Hector Pieterson, and the photograph of him being carried by an older student went around the world.
Read the complete 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West comes up about 18 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sterkfontein.
Some of the most important clues to human evolution have come out of a set of limestone caves in the grassland north-west of Johannesburg. The Sterkfontein caves, in the area known as the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, have yielded hundreds of hominin fossils, including Mrs Ples, a skull of Australopithecus africanus about two million years old, found in 1947, and Little Foot, an almost complete skeleton of an Australopithecus, painstakingly extracted from the rock over two decades.
Read the complete Sterkfontein write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach Sterkfontein. Next is back through 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West, late in the day. Next is Constitution Hill.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Constitution Hill write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Constitution Hill. That is the ride.
Constitution Hill → 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West → Sterkfontein is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sterkfontein → back through 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West → Constitution Hill is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.