Modern Cyclist Magazine Issue 3, November 2014 | Page 16

MC mtb trails

Sharpen up
your skills
Do you battle with drop offs? Or perhaps you can’t quite do
camel humps as effortlessly as other riders? Then you need to
go to PWC Bike Park where you can practice that particular
obstacle over and over again until you get it right. Raymond
Travers tries to explain what makes this bike park unique.

After riding the low level bridges at
the skills track, riders build up their
confidence levels to be able to tackle
bridges like this easily.

By Raymond Travers

I

must be honest. The only thing I am
actually scared of is heights. Since I was in
nappies, I’ve been petrified of “falling off”,
particularly heights of two metres or so.
Yes, I know it is weird for someone as
adventurous as I am. But the fear of heights
came back to me, as strong as ever, when I
started this mountain biking malarkey.
Ask anyone who has ridden a trail with me
– particularly in my early days – if I got to a
narrow bridge or a drop off, I’d get off the
bike and gingerly cross the bridge or I would
slowly descend the drop off, cursing the trail
builder all the way.
Now, after a few years – and a few thousand
kilometres – I am a lot more confident with
these two obstacles than I used to be. With
bridges, I’m still a bit cautious but I am able

16

to ride most I come across with relative
confidence. But with drop offs, a miracle
has happened. I simply love drop offs, and
will actively try and find them and try and
ride them.
This “about face” in my skill level is mostly
due to what is now known as PWC Bike
Park. Described by the park’s commercial
manager Marc Fourie as a “beautiful piece
of nature which you can experience in
the middle of Johannesburg”, the PWC
Bike Park is like no other cycling venue as it
particularly caters for skills development.
Like many mountain bikers who have ridden
there often, it is always difficult to answer
the usual question I get asked: “how long
is the trail there?” My usual answer is: “Err
… there is no trail as such …” and a rather
blank stare from the enquirer is the result.

ISSUE 3 NOVEMBER 2014 / www.moderncyclist.co.za

So, to get it out there, PWC Bike Park
consists of a series of graded routes,
none of them longer than a few hundred
metres, but each with a specific set of
obstacles which let you practice your
skills. Although they are currently being
renamed, these routes have names like
“The Green Mile” or “Ewok” or “Angle
Grinder” and are numbered according
to the specific lesson that you might want
to learn.
If you a first time rider, you can hit the
skills track which includes low (around 30
centimetres off the ground) bridges, “S”bends, berms, drop offs and a few other
“must have” obstacles.
When you have practiced those skills,
you might want to try the various green
routes, which include camel bumps, “S”-