The Cape Town Cycle Tour 2018 Is Drought Friendly!

 The 2018 Cape Town Cycle Tour Is Drought Friendly!

The annual Cape Town Cycle Tour (formerly known as The Cape Argus Cycle Tour) is coming up again this weekend on Sunday 11 March 2018. It's a buzzing event in the Mother City that draws people from all over the globe to take part in the largest timed cycling event in the world. About 35 000 cyclists line up to ride the annual 109km route through some of the world’s most spectacular scenery. 

Seeing as there will be an influx of visitors into our city, it has been a huge concern for the organisers of The Cape Town Cycle Tour as to how our critically low water levels will be affected. It is their intention that the 2018 Cape Town Cycle Tour will draw zero litres of drinking water from the municipal supply on event day.

The Cape Town Cycle Tour Management Team announced that they were putting in dedicated efforts to ensure that the event could continue as normal without impacting Cape Town's water shortage. They laid down initiatives that they are taking to avoid any repercussions on Cape Town's water supplies.

Some of these initiatives are as follows:

• Bringing water from upcountry for drinking and ice on the route, and using locally-produced desalinated water for all cleansing purposes.
• No Cycle Tour suppliers, including hospitality management and toilet suppliers, may utilise water that comes directly off the city grid. Instead, spring water, greywater, desalinated water, waterless soap etc will be used.
• Greywater will be collected during the event and afterwards delivered to a water treatment plant.
• All water ballasts previously utilised for weighting various structural solutions has been changed to cement blocks 

The Cape Town Cycle Tour Trust will be introducing 3 million litres of water to Cape Town from areas not experiencing drought, such as Swellendam. David Bellairs, a Director of the Trust said, “We are extremely grateful to Swellendam municipality, its Municipal Manager Anton Groenewald and Mayor Nico Myburgh for their generous offer of 2.2-million litres of potable water."

We think it is absolutely amazing that the Cape Town Cycle Tour Management and Trust are taking Cape Town's water situation to heart and have proactively come up with concerted efforts to manage the event's water usage without making a mark on Cape Town's water levels.

Please note: if you are taking part in the Cape Town Cycle Tour and would like to book accommodation with Riverlodge Backpackers for the event, you will receive a 10% discount. View our accommodation options here.

READ: HOW TO SAVE WATER DURING CAPE TOWN'S DROUGHT

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