So today is the Highlight!  The highlight after the three week build up towards today’s Open Day at the DarkFEST sponsored by Monster Energy.  The buzz had been going since last year already, when profession free ride mountain biker Sam Reynolds first came to the Garden Route to do some insane tricks on his bike.  I call them insane, and I’m sure once you’ve seen the pictures and the little video of what the guys (and the odd girl, I might add!) do on and with a mountain bike, you will agree with me!

Last year Sam came out with some of his friends and just built the biggest, baddest loop I have ever seen.

‘Loop of Doom’

This year he (or should we say the sponsor Monster Energy?) brought even more friends.  Friends I had never heard of before, but who have over the last couple of weeks almost become household names in the town of Knysna: Matt MacDuff (who became even more of a ‘hero’ when he first attempted the ‘Loop of Doom’ and failed….), Adolf Silva (19!, from Spain), Graham Agassiz  and Kurt Sorge (both from Canada), Andreu Lacondeguy (also from Spain), Cam Zink, Ethan Nell and Kyle Jameson (all three from the USA), Clemens Kaudela (Austria), Nico Vink (Belgium) and Dylan Stone (not sure what his passport says).  They built, the climbed the roll-in tower (eish!  Even climbing to the top is not for the faint-hearted, let alone riding your bike off it…), rolled off, and did as many tricks as they could think off.

So today their playground was open for us mere mortals.  I almost sh@t myself just looking at what these guys were doing.  But wow, what great fun it was to watch them!

Media from all over the world was there too to record it all so the rest of the world can also at some point see some more professional footage than what I’m capable of.  Oh, to give you an idea of what they did last year, have a look at the video on the Pink Bike website.  This year was bigger, and better…

Want to see the roll-in tower and the different step-ups in real life?  Take your bike and head of the Garden Route Trail Park.  It’s about 30min. from the Knysna Wayside Inn and there are different trails which you and I can ride.  Just for fun!