"From hard-earned experience in the remote wilds: simple, strong, Wildforged reliability."

This page outlines the events and experiences of our company and it’s staff over the last decade that led to our shift in focus to product manufacture.

Logo for Swartberg 100 Gran Fondo, featuring a cyclist with arms raised, sunset mountains in background, and banner text.

SWARTBERG 100 GRAN FONDO - “Choose your Weapon”

Challenges that required in-house fabrication to solve…

A 30% drop-out rate on a brutal 170km course.

Thirty percent of the field would abandon the race each year and we had to sweep them up from remote areas. We had to build our own sweep trailers that could safely carry 30+ bikes at a time behind busses as well as quick loading racks on official’s sweep vehicles. There is nothing commercially available that can solve this problem for you. Building 7.5 metre trailers takes some engineering as well as solving issues around quick loading and making absolutely sure our customer’s bikes could not be damaged.

Start and Finish Gantries.

Sounds like stuff you can just hire, but in this case not. We were too remote to have anyone deliver full size start and finish gantries to us. There were also issues with wind in the afternoons, safety was paramount and we needed a consistent solution each year for all the starting points. We designed and built them ourselves. Portable, quick assembly with a small team and rock solid in windy conditions.

Road Signage.

The road signage would blown over in places or be stolen in remote areas of the race, with a 170km course you needed to be sure the signage would remain there regardless of weather or “steel hungry” criminals, but it still needed to be quickly transportable and deployed. Again we designed and built solutions for this.

GravelGrinder Tours - “A social, cycling and culinary adventure”

Graphic design with text 'Grapevine Border Tours' and images of a mushroom cloud, flying birds, a windmill, and a zebra on a black background.
A logo for Langelberg Graveled Grinders featuring a mountain landscape, a heron, grapevines, and a circular saw blade design.
Logo featuring a scenic landscape with a wheat field, wheat stalks, a gray bird, and rolling hills in the background. Text reads "Overberg Gravel Grinder".
A logo for 'Camdeboo' featuring a landscape with mountains and a blue sky, a zebra, a windmill, and text that reads 'Camdeboo Gravel Grinder' on a black background.
Logo for Kavoo Gravel Grinder featuring mountain peaks, a windmill, and a cyclist, with the text "Kavoo Gravel Grinder".

More in-house fabrication to improve our service efficiency and safe bike transport.

The format of our tours was to provide 60+ km’s per day of the best riding routes in areas surrounding quaint villages steeped in history. This meant we needed to move groups of up to 40 cyclists sometimes twice a day to avoid unattractive or high traffic areas. The vast majority of the bicycles were 25kg + e-Bikes. We needed to be able to load 40 bikes in about 15 mins, ensuring that during transport or loading they did not get damaged. Lavish water-points needed to be set up by a small mobile crew that involved culinary offerings that were challenging to transport and keep fresh.

To ensure the best experience for our customers we designed and constructed trailers, sweep racks and solutions to solve all these challenges and guarantee efficiency. These challenges pushed the boundaries of innovation and immersed us in the world of engineering and steel fabrication.