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.
From Vereeniging it runs 271 km to Vereeniging; allow about 4 h 14 of riding. The stops in between: Walter Sisulu Square, Constitution Hill, 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West and Liliesleaf. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,650 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
On 21 March 1960, a crowd of several thousand people gathered at the police station in Sharpeville, a township south of Johannesburg, to protest against the pass laws, which forced Black South Africans to carry documents and restricted their movement. The police opened fire. Sixty-nine people were killed, many of them shot in the back as they ran, and many more were wounded. The massacre became a turning point: it brought the apartheid regime worldwide condemnation, led to the banning of the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress, and pushed the liberation movement towards armed struggle. Today, 21 March is a public holiday, Human Rights Day.
Read the complete Sharpeville Graves site A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sharpeville Graves site A is where the day begins. Next is Walter Sisulu Square.
On 26 June 1955, some three thousand delegates gathered on a dusty open field in Kliptown, one of the oldest settlements of what became Soweto, for the Congress of the People. Police surrounded the meeting on its second day, but not before the crowd had adopted the Freedom Charter, the document that opens with the words that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white. Its ideas went on to shape the country's post-apartheid constitution. The field is now Walter Sisulu Square, named after the anti-apartheid leader and mentor of Nelson Mandela, and the charter's clauses are carved into stone around a monument at its centre.
Read the complete Walter Sisulu Square write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Walter Sisulu Square comes up about 56 km into the recorded legs. Next is Constitution Hill.
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.
about 80 km into the recorded legs you reach Constitution Hill. 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, about halfway. Next is Liliesleaf.
In the early 1960s, Rivonia was a quiet farming area on the northern edge of Johannesburg, and Liliesleaf was a smallholding with a farmhouse, outbuildings and a thatched cottage. It was bought, through a front, by the South African Communist Party and used as a secret headquarters by the leadership of the liberation movement, including Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress. Nelson Mandela lived here for a time under a false name, posing as a worker called David Motsamayi. On 11 July 1963, police raided the farm and arrested much of the leadership, seizing documents that led to the Rivonia Trial, in which Mandela and others were sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela's speech from the dock, declaring an ideal for which he was prepared to die, became one of the defining moments of the struggle against apartheid.
Read the complete Liliesleaf write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Liliesleaf sits at 139 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 171 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through 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.
about 189 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Constitution Hill. Next is back through Walter Sisulu Square.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Walter Sisulu Square write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Walter Sisulu Square, late in the day. Next is Sharpeville Graves site A.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sharpeville Graves site A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 271 km.
Sharpeville Graves site A → Walter Sisulu Square is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Walter Sisulu Square → Constitution Hill is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
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 → Liliesleaf is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Liliesleaf → back through 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West → back through Constitution Hill is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Constitution Hill → back through Walter Sisulu Square is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Walter Sisulu Square → Sharpeville Graves site A is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.