What makes Africranks Unique

If you have been considering booking a mountain bike experience with Africranks Biking, but find yourself wondering what exactly makes Africranks experiences unique, then hopefully this list will help you decide if we are the right fit for you.

Instead of trying to explain what an Africranks experience is, we thought it would be easier to list five things Africranks Biking is not, to help you better understand what our awesome mountain bike experiences in South Africa (and beyond), are all about.

Africranks is not a race/event organiser

Mountain bike racing is cool, and South Africa has a host of really great events, ranging from one-day classics to tough multi-day stage races. But racing isn’t the only way to enjoy mountain bikes. 

That is why Africranks Biking focuses on mountain bike adventures that take you to incredible places, often not accessible to the general public, in small groups, allowing us to tailor the experience and ensure everyone always has an amazing time, away from huge crowds, and without the worries about cutoff times and positions

However, if you are planning on doing some mountain bike racing in South Africa, then take a look at our Pro-Experience packages, and let us make your next stage race a little bit more comfortable.

Africranks is not a bike packing company

Bike-packing is also really cool, and South Africa, with its thousands of miles of gravel roads, is a great place to take on a bike-packing adventure. But that isn’t what our experiences are about. 

Africranks point-to-point style tours can be seen as mountain bike slack packing adventures. All of our tours are fully catered and have support vehicles to carry your gear between overnight stops, provide snacks and refreshments on route and assist with mechanical issues. This allows you to better enjoy the tracks and trails, not needing to weigh your bike down with gear, and also provides a safety net, in case you run into trouble on the road.

Our flagship “Parks and Rec Roadtrips” are even further removed from bike-packing. These adventures are truly road trips in every sense of the word, allowing you to travel across the length and breadth of South Africa, stopping off at the best bike parks and trail centres, for some full-on, unstructured trail riding. Local legends can tailor each day’s riding to give you just the experience you are looking for, whether it is taking on an all-day epic, or sessioning the gnarliest descents on offer, the choice is all yours.

Africranks is not a gravel-biking company

Gravel-biking is also really cool, and we can actually accommodate gravel bikes on some of our tours, but this will often require changing the routes, or skipping certain sections. Quintessentially, Africranks Biking is 100% a mountain bike tour company. There are many others offering bike tours in South Africa, that focus mainly on tar and gravel. There is a lot of great cycling to be done in South Africa without needing to head off onto jeep tracks and single tracks, but that is not what we are about. 

As previously mentioned, our “Parks and Rec Roadtrips” are exclusively mountain bike trail riding adventures. Our other “slackpacking” tours follow a point-to-point format, and this does mean that significant distance is ridden on gravel roads that are well suited to gravel bikes, but instead of sticking to the main roads, we endeavour wherever possible to turn off onto jeep and single track and work in as much of this as possible on our routes. This is often achieved by special arrangements to gain access across private property and makes our tours truly unique. 

If you want to ride a gravel bike, please contact us, and we will recommend tours that can be changed up to accommodate you, but you are probably better off with a flat-bar bike with at least front suspension.

Africranks is not about making you suffer

Wait, what?! if you are wondering if you read that correctly, you did, but let’s explain. If you refer back to point one, we are not a race organiser. Our riding tours are designed to be purely fun. That does not mean the riding is easy though. Many of our multi-day tours include back-to-back days of 80+km and a lot of climbing. The riding is still “proper”, even though we make sure to stop and smell the roses along the way.

What we mean by Africranks not being about making you suffer, is that we make an effort to provide you with a luxury experience off the bike. Every night is spent in a guest house or hotel, in a proper bed, you have the option for a massage after a hard day’s ride, or to chill around the swimming pool with an ice-cold beer or cocktail. We also focus on highlighting the best of South African cuisine and make mealtime a central feature of all of our tours. There is always a chance that you might even put on weight on an Africranks adventure, and that is something we are very proud of.

Africranks is not a travel agent/intermediary

Africranks Biking is not just a booking agency or intermediary that farms you off to a third party. All of our tours are meticulously planned and run by us. Our guides will have test ridden all routes personally before embarking on a trip, and we hand select only the best accommodation providers and eateries along the way, to ensure our clients always have the best experience possible. Because of this attention to detail in the planning, combined with intimate local knowledge, and the small group nature of all Africranks Biking tours, we are also able to remain flexible, and customise every experience, ensuring that you have a memorable experience every time you book a trip with Africranks. furthermore, our Safe Booking Guarantee provides you with peace of mind.

If you would like more information about any of our experiences or would like to discuss a booking with us, please contact us