Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 77, December 2015 | Page 56

Mc

Happening
As is common during participation
events, the start was relatively slow
for the “back markers”.

Riding for our
freedom
By Raymond Travers

The Johannesburg Freedom Ride has become a bit of an
institution.

It has been ridden by a wide variety of people, from professional
cyclists to others who have to dust their bicycles off once a year for
the one ride they’ll do that year.
And the latest incarnation of South Africa’s largest city’s Freedom
Ride was no exception.
Held on Sunday 11 October and with its start and finish line in
Sandton, linking in with the EcoMobility Festival, the Freedom Ride
took cyclists through Parktown, Hillbrow, Yeoville, Alexandra and
then back to Sandton.
After a quick jaunt through the streets of Sandton, the riders
headed towards the shady suburbs of Parkview. A helter-skelter
down Jan Smuts Avenue led to the first really nasty hill up past the
zoo.
A left turn onto Upper Park Drive, followed by a right turn up a
relatively steep Ettrick Road got the riders onto Oxford Road and
into Parktown itself with a left turn into Victoria Avenue.
Another left turn into Sam Hancock Street and the riders pedalled
into Hillbrow itself. Then riders rode through the flatland of Hillbrow
proper on Van der Merwe Street, many of the older cyclists not
seeing these streets for decades.

It was a strange feeling for many riders who grew up
enjoying the nightlife of Hillbrow during the 1970s and 1980s
or perhaps even living in one of the many flats overlooking
those streets during those years, and now riding through
those streets with curious onlookers and city security and
JMPD Metro cops looking after them.
Riders flicked through Olivia Road, Tudhope Avenue and Alexandra
Street before hitting Yeoville. Saunders Street, then a left into
Fortesque Road and a r Y