A few mates, a set of bikes, and one weekend a year to disappear into the hills — mountain bike or gravel, whichever gets us further from our inboxes.
Fifteen trips, one growing list of nicknames nobody can quite explain to newcomers.
The regulars, the one-timers, and everyone who's ever said "I'm in" a bit too quickly.
Ales & Trails started with a simple idea: get a few mates out of their inboxes and onto dirt roads and singletrack somewhere beautiful, once or twice a year, no matter what. Some years it's mountain bikes and rocky descents; other years it's gravel grinding through farmland and forestry roads. The bikes change. The reason we go doesn't.
Since 2017 that's taken us from the hills above Durban to gravel through the Midlands, the climbs around Clarens and the valleys of Zululand — always with more elevation gain than anyone remembers agreeing to, and a route name that gets more ridiculous every year.
The riding is the excuse. The real point is the mates — people who'll ride four hours in the rain with you and still be good company at the end of it. Life piles up: deadlines, inboxes, the noise of being switched on all the time. A weekend on a bike with people who've got your back has a way of putting all of that back into proportion. You come home tired in the right way — sore legs, a sunburnt neck, and the kind of headspace you don't get anywhere else.
And because we're not monks about it, every trip ends the same way it should: cold beers, bad jokes, and someone already asking where we're riding next year.
Mates first. Trails second. The beers are non-negotiable.
