CURVESCOUTThursday Ride #5 · 10 December 2026
Clarence Drive Coastal Sweep
A loop from Kraaifontein · South Africa
- 264 km
- 4 h 48 min riding
- 8 stops
- loop
This Thursday: Clarence Drive Coastal Sweep. 264 km as a loop from Kraaifontein in South Africa, about 4 h 48 min in the saddle. In December the southern hemisphere is in its riding season - long days and warm roads.
Keep this if you want a short, intense coastal road near Cape Town. Clarence Drive runs about 22 km between Gordon's Bay and Rooi-Els, with more than 70 bends squeezed between the mountains and False Bay. It was started in 1940 and finished by Italian prisoners of war. On a clear day you can see across to Cape Point. Pass on it if you want a long day in the saddle; it is a road to ride slowly and enjoy. Keep it, use the pull-outs for photos, and watch for baboons and occasional rockfall.
- Mara, CurveScout scout
The map loads with the stops and the ride's road.
The ride, stop by stop
1Kraaifontein
Kraaifontein lies on Cape Town's northern edge, where the suburbs give way to wheat fields, vineyards and the first ranges of the Boland. Its name means crow's fountain, a reminder of a time when this was a farm with a spring rather than a busy suburb on the N1. For riders, it is the threshold between the city and the Winelands.
From here, a short ride takes you into some of the most celebrated countryside in South Africa. Durbanville's wine valley is just to the west, with cellars on rolling hills. To the east, the R304 and other roads lead towards Stellenbosch and Paarl, with the great granite dome of Paarl Mountain standing over the vineyards. Beyond lies Franschhoek, founded by French Huguenot refugees in the late seventeenth century, and the Franschhoek Pass, which climbs in sweeping bends over the mountains with views back over the valley.
2Cape Town / Western Capekm 92
The name Swartland means black land, from the dark renosterbos scrub that once covered the hills, and the landscape is rolling farmland, with wheat fields that turn from green to gold and then to stubble as the year goes on. In spring, particularly in August and September, the roadside verges and fallow fields explode into yellow and orange with daisies and other annuals, and the little town holds a wildflower show to celebrate it.
The coast lies about twenty kilometres west, at Yzerfontein, where the cold Atlantic washes onto long beaches and small rocky coves, so a swim is possible but bracing. Water along this coast comes from the Benguela current and is rarely above fifteen degrees Celsius, so do not expect warmth even in January. Inland, the ground rises to a ridge of granite hills, and the farm roads are mostly gravel or tarmac patched by the heat, with light traffic and long clear views.
3Atlantiskm 131
Atlantis is not a postcard town, and nobody here pretends it is. It was built from scratch in the 1970s on the sandy plains north of Cape Town, part of the apartheid government's plan to move coloured families out of the city and to create an industrial centre far from the suburbs. The result was a planned town of factories, schools and housing estates, some forty-five kilometres from the city, which still struggles with unemployment and crime. It is worth understanding that history as you ride through.
What the area offers is landscape. Around the town lie the Atlantis dunes, a great sea of white sand that has been used for sandboarding, quad biking and, of course, filming. The flat sandveld here is covered in tough, low scrub, part of the fynbos and strandveld vegetation of the West Coast, and in late winter and spring, roughly August and September, the plains burst into colour as wild flowers bloom after the rain.
4Constantiakm 199
Constantia is where wine began in South Africa, and it still has the air of a place that knows it. The valley lies on the eastern side of the Table Mountain chain, sheltered from the Atlantic, with old oak avenues, whitewashed Cape Dutch farmhouses and vineyards climbing toward the steep slopes of the Constantiaberg. It is one of Cape Town's leafiest and wealthiest suburbs, but the farms are open to visitors and the roads around it are some of the most beautiful in the city.
The story starts with Simon van der Stel, the Dutch East India Company governor, who was granted the land in 1685 and built Groot Constantia, whose gabled manor house is now a museum. A century later the farm's sweet wine, Vin de Constance, was famous across Europe: Napoleon had it shipped to him in exile on St Helena, and Jane Austen mentions Constantia wine in Sense and Sensibility as a cure for a broken heart. The style was revived in modern times and you can taste it today, along with the region's sauvignon blanc, which loves the cool breezes from False Bay.
5Near Constantiakm 206
The wooded eastern flank of Table Mountain rises right above this point, a few kilometres from Constantia, where the southern suburbs meet the forests and the mountain. This is Cape Town's green side: oak avenues, pine and gum plantations, old estates and the cool, shaded slopes that catch the clouds when the southeaster blows. Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden lies along the same slope, and on its terraces you can walk among proteas, ericas and other plants of the Cape Floral Kingdom with the mountain towering overhead.
The roads here wind through the trees. Rhodes Drive runs along the mountain from Constantia Nek past Kirstenbosch toward Newlands, a narrow, curving road shaded by old trees, with glimpses of the mountain through the branches. It is slow, often busy and shared with cyclists, but beautiful, especially in the early morning light. The forests of Cecilia and Newlands have walking trails up toward the mountain, and the air smells of pine, damp earth and fynbos.
6Retreatkm 220
Retreat sits on the flat land between the mountains of the Cape Peninsula and the sandy plains that run down to False Bay, a busy, working suburb on Main Road and the railway line south of the city. It is no beauty spot, but it lies right at the foot of some of the finest short rides in Cape Town, and its petrol stations and shops are useful when you are about to climb into the hills or head out along the coast.
The road that makes Retreat worth knowing is Ou Kaapse Weg, the M64, which starts in nearby Tokai and climbs steeply over the mountains to Noordhoek and the Atlantic side. It is a proper mountain road, with long sweepers, tight bends near the top and wide views back over the southern suburbs and False Bay. At the summit you ride through the Silvermine section of Table Mountain National Park, with fynbos on every side, and the descent to Noordhoek reveals the long white beach of Long Beach and the cliffs of Chapman's Peak. The road is popular, policed and occasionally closed for fires or accidents, so ride it with respect.
7Retreatkm 220
Retreat sits on the flat land between the mountains of the Cape Peninsula and the sandy plains that run down to False Bay, a busy, working suburb on Main Road and the railway line south of the city. It is no beauty spot, but it lies right at the foot of some of the finest short rides in Cape Town, and its petrol stations and shops are useful when you are about to climb into the hills or head out along the coast.
The road that makes Retreat worth knowing is Ou Kaapse Weg, the M64, which starts in nearby Tokai and climbs steeply over the mountains to Noordhoek and the Atlantic side. It is a proper mountain road, with long sweepers, tight bends near the top and wide views back over the southern suburbs and False Bay. At the summit you ride through the Silvermine section of Table Mountain National Park, with fynbos on every side, and the descent to Noordhoek reveals the long white beach of Long Beach and the cliffs of Chapman's Peak. The road is popular, policed and occasionally closed for fires or accidents, so ride it with respect.
8Clarencekm 264
The dot sits well inland of Clarence Drive itself, on the northeastern side of Cape Town where the city thins out toward the winelands, and the ride is on its way home. Kraaifontein, a big working suburb, sits just beside it, while Stellenbosch and Paarl lie a short run to the east. The coast road that gives the ride its name, the R44 between Gordon's Bay and Rooi-Els, is hours behind you by now.
Clarence Drive deserves a few lines anyway, because it is the reason the day exists. It was carved into the foot of the Hottentots-Holland mountains, with the road clinging to the cliffs above False Bay, and it has a reputation among South African riders as the best coastal tarmac near Cape Town. The corners come in a long, rhythmic series, the sea sparkles on your left, and in winter and spring the southern right whales sometimes show up in the bay, close enough to watch from the lay-bys.
Before you go
264 km loop, about 4 h 48 min of riding. Check the weather and any road closures before you leave; mountain and coast roads change with the season.