CAPE TOWN ACTIVITIES
Mountain Bike Trail Parks in Cape Town
Cape Town’s trail parks are private networks, each with its own permit, its own grading and its own character. Eight of them here, with one representative route from each.
The ABC Trail
The park to start at. Muratie’s ABC Trail is a confirmed Green route built in three sections: A runs 3.7 km out to Gilloolys, C returns 2.7 km, and an optional B forest loop adds 1.8 km. Dirtopia runs the trail centre, which means signage, a place to hire and somebody to ask. If you have never ridden a Cape trail park, this is the one that will not punish you for it.
The ABC Trail is Muratie’s beginner Green route, starting at the Dirtopia Trail Centre on Muratie Wine Estate and running through the Simonsberg trail system to Gilloolys.
The operator publishes it as three connected sections. A runs 3.7 km from the Muratie trailhead to Gilloolys, C returns 2.7 km, and B is an optional 1.8 km forest loop. Ride A + C for 6.4 km, or include B for an 8.2 km configuration.
Bloemendal Blue
Thirteen kilometres and about 267 metres of climbing, linking Home Run, Kuilvoergat, BloemeNice, Flow Terra, Lombard’s Terra and B-Spot. The named sections are the point: this is a park where the riding is built and signed rather than found, and the loop is a tour of what the builders have made. Good first step up from a green route.
Bloemendal Blue is the current Blue route published by Tygerberg Mountain Bike Club for Bloemendal Trail Park. TMTBC lists it at 13 km with 267 m of elevation gain, describes the route as circular, and grades it Blue / Moderate.
The current TMTBC route page identifies Home Run, Kuilvoergat, BloemeNice, Flow Terra, Lombard’s Terra and B-Spot as component trails. Follow the marked route from Bloemendal Trail Park and check current trail status before riding.
Contermanskloof Supertubes & Cheeky Corners Loop
A 10.5 km loop combining a sustained climb with the named Supertubes and Cheeky Corners descents. Contermanskloof is the Durbanville-side park to ride when you want flow rather than distance, and it is the clearest example in this guide of a network built around earning two good descents rather than covering ground.
This loop brings together two of Contermanskloof’s named descents, Supertubes and Cheeky Corners, using the farm’s climbing and linking trails to connect them into a single ride. The character is simple: gain the height first, then spend much of the return on purpose-built singletrack.
The 10.5 km configuration comes from a mapped route rather than an official Contermanskloof route sheet, so CapeCurated treats it as a useful way of linking established trails rather than as a separately named trail-centre route.
Full Hoogies Experience
A mapped loop across the Hoogekraal and Welvergenoegd network, pairing sustained climbing with a longer run of descent than the short Hoogies Hammer loop most visitors ride. Pick this one when you want the park properly rather than a quick lap, and expect the climbing to be the price of it.
Full Hoogies Experience is a mapped loop through the Hoogekraal and Welvergenoegd trail network, linking a broader selection of the area’s established trails into one ride. Rather than using the shorter shortcut options, the route follows a longer circuit before returning to the trailhead.
The ride combines repeated climbing with purpose-built trail sections, so it feels more like a full network outing than a quick lap built around one descent.
Bottelary Yellow Loop from Brenaissance
A mapped version of the Bottelary Hills official Yellow Loop, starting from Brenaissance, one of the Conservancy’s recognised access points. This is the most open riding here: farmland rather than forest, and a conservancy rather than a single estate, which means the network stretches further than any one entry point suggests.
Bottelary Hills is a large MTB network crossing working farms and wine estates around the Stellenbosch winelands. The Conservancy officially publishes a Yellow Loop and lists Brenaissance among its access points; this version follows a mapped 18.8 km loop from that starting area.
The ride has two distinct halves. Much of the climbing comes early on open farm roads and vineyard tracks, while the return shifts towards faster, flowing singletrack through the network. With several official access points across Bottelary, following the correct route markers is more important here than at a self-contained trail centre.
Bovenland Red
A 12 km circular route starting and finishing at Spice Route Destination, which Paarl Trails grades Blue or Moderate. It is the entry in this guide where the destination is doing as much work as the trail: vineyard riding with somewhere substantial to end up, which makes it the easiest park to bring non-riders along to.
Bovenland Red starts and finishes at Spice Route Destination and runs for 12 km through the Bovenland section of the Paarl Trails network. With 320 m of climbing, it combines vineyard terrain with purpose-built riding and open views across the Paarl valley.
Despite the name, Red is the route identity rather than its technical grade. Paarl Trails grades Bovenland Red Blue / Moderate, giving riders a much more useful indication of the difficulty than the route name alone.
The Ibex
One of MTO Jonkershoek’s three featured routes, combining a substantial valley climb with contour riding and a sequence of flowing descents back to the main area. Jonkershoek is a mountain reserve rather than a farm network, and it rides like one: the climb is long and the reward is the valley.
The Ibex is one of three featured MTB routes published by MTO at Jonkershoek, combining a sustained climb into the valley with contour riding and a long sequence of descents on the return. It starts and finishes at the main MTO trailhead and gives a broad introduction to the scale and character of the Jonkershoek network.
The setting is a major part of the ride. Steep mountain slopes frame the valley while the route gains height through the upper trail network, before the character changes from climbing and traversing to the Red Phoenix and Firehut descents.
Helderberg Farm Black Section
Helderberg Farm’s most demanding marked route, a compact 12 km loop with substantial climbing and Black-grade riding. Worth knowing before you go: Green, Blue and Red routes start from the same place, so this is the park where a mixed-ability group can genuinely split up and still meet for coffee.
Helderberg Farm’s Black Section is the most demanding route in the farm’s colour-graded MTB network. Over 12 km it packs in around 600 m of climbing, giving the ride a steep, concentrated character on the foothills above Somerset West.
The wider trail network is part of the appeal. Green, Blue and Red options leave from the same trailhead, so riders of different ability levels can choose separate routes without splitting across different venues. That makes Helderberg particularly useful for families or groups who want to ride at different levels on the same visit.
Permits, grading and one park that is not here
Every park in this guide sells its own access, and a permit for one is not a permit for the next. Buy before you drive. Grading is local too: a Blue at Paarl Trails and a Blue somewhere else are the same word describing two different networks, so read the route rather than the colour.
Tokai is deliberately absent. It is the best-known riding near the city, but it sits inside Table Mountain National Park rather than being a private trail park, with a different access arrangement and a different feel. It belongs in the wider guide to riding in Cape Town, not in a comparison of parks.