Photographers on bikes

Photo by Gustav Brandt

An old riding friend of mine was back in the country for a visit and we arranged to go ride some trails and snap some photos.  Gustav Brandt has been staying in Stellenbosch for the last 5 odd years before moving back to the Middle East.  In his time of staying in Stellenbosch he has not ridden the Jonkershoek trails yet. He has only competed in a Provincial DHI race there.

Photo by Gustav Brandt

With him being a professional photographer, focusing his time and passion in landscape photography, he joined us at 10:00 in the morning at the Jonkershoek gate with his camera on his back, as any good photographer should..  He was on his trusty old steed, a 2010 GT Ruckus DJ bike, with only a rear brake and running a 1x9 drive train.  In typical Gustav fashion with his skater shoes, flat pedals and a hoody... this time with shorts instead of the usual jeans!

Gustav checking some lines onto "the rock"

Gustav testing the grip

We signed in and decided to take him to Slangpad for a first taste of Jonkershoek.  With Slangpad being a fairly easy yet fun trail with fun berms and flowy lines.  After this we went for the big long climb to the New upper Canary trails to take him to "the rock", a fairly sized rock that was made to be a wall ride in trail.  With Gustav's background in street riding on his BMX and MTB he quickly checked the lines and was back at riding walls with a bit of a twist.

Gustav on his first try

While Arné and I watched Goose go higher and higher we could see that he was really getting the the hang of riding his bike again.  With a big smile on his dial he went back and did it again and again.  I managed to grab his camera and snapped some pics of him.

Goose mastering "the rock"

After the short photoshoot we headed to the top and had one blinding run down.  I almost forgot how much fun the Canaries are.

We headed over to the Never ending story and on our way there I could see it did not take much to get Goose riding like old times again.  He was popping wheelies all over the place pedaling on one wheel for most of the time.  A skill I admire and wish I had.

On our way there we stopped so he could capture some images that he uses for landscapes.  All I can say is that this guy has got some serious skills.

Photo by Gustav brandt

The two trail guides. Photo by Gustav Brandt

We got to Never ending story and we decided Arné should go first.  Goose managed to capture some nice images of her on the trail.

Photo by Gustav Brandt

After that it was my turn and he did the same with me.

Photo by Gustav Brandt

We got to the bottom and all of us enjoyed it.  Arné and I had so much fun on the big bikes after riding the hardtails for a while.  Goose just had a ball since it was his first time riding it.  Yeah, it is long, and a bit of a pedal, but still great fun on a bike!

To end off the day we went over the bottom of the DH track and then continued to ride the lower Firehut trail.

Gustav did his first 20km trail ride in Jonkershoek and he loved it.  We will be back for sure to show him some more trails.  Thanks Gustav for a fun day out on the bikes and all the great photos you supplied.

You can follow Gustav on Facebook and his Blog