Into the wild
Jack is about two-footsix, weighs 75kg, has short grey hair and while not precisely the owner of the cafe is very much its front-of-house face. He bounds between tables, gait like a lazy horse, barely able to see from under the droop of his brow. He poses with customers for photos. He’s the most famous Great Dane in Franschhoek – so famous that the Big Dog Cafe is named after him.
In turn, the Big Dog Cafe is a famous spot with local cyclists: safe racking for bikes, a cool canteen-hacienda vibe for patrons and an excellent meeting point for rolling out of town and up the Franschhoek Pass.
Across the table from me sits Kyle, our support car driver, and Jamie, an English ex-pat who married a South African and who somehow manages to find time to run a flagship bike store (Specialized), a cafe (Coffeeworks) and a bike tour business (Cape Vélo). If it’s cycling you want in South Africa’s Western Cape, Jamie’s your guy, and today he’s cooked up an A-to-B ride of mixed surfaces that has the promise of being pretty punishing despite being ‘only’ 90 or so kilometres long.
As a general rule a kilometre off-road takes me 50% longer than a kilometre on it, so I’d posit it’s 50% harder
