Cape Town - An admiration for his father got his feet on the pedals in his childhood.
“Anything my dad wanted to do, I wanted to do too.”
So says Justin Bijl, 28 - a Joburg-based strategist who will be cycling his 21st Cape Town Cycle Tour this year.
Determined to enter the race after watching his dad cycle in the 1993 race, Bijl made sure he never lost hope and succeeded in completing the full race when he was nine.
“I’m very proud that this will be my 21st Cycle Tour. I have to give thanks to my dad who motivated me to keep on doing it,” he said.
Bijl’s cycle tour history began as a young spectator watching his father, Chris, from the sidelines in 1993, which set the wheel in motion when a six-year-old Bijl decided he wanted to be part of the Cycle Tour the following year.
In 1994, Bijl entered his first race cycling in tandem with his father.
“I was so tiny that Speedy Cycles – a shop in Wynberg, had to put little wooden blocks underneath my feet on the pedals”, said Bijl.
It was only two years later that Bijl was able to tackle the route by himself and, by then, the cycling bug had bitten.
Not even a stint in London, for work commitments in 2013, prevented the cyclist from entering his habitual cycle. As previous years have demonstrated, the race is not for the faint-hearted.
Bijl singles out two memorable races. The first was in 1995, his second year riding tandem with his father which gave rise to a chain snap in Simon’s Town coupled with a brake failure on Chapman’s Peak.
“We went downhill with no brakes and as a young boy it was scary but I was with my father and he reassured me. We still finished the race. If we start something, we’re going to finish it.”
The second occasion was in 2009 when a storm had passed with windy conditions.
“Cyclists were being blown off their bikes, I knew I just had to persevere and continue and I did.”
“I’ll always try and make the effort to make the race”.
Cape Argus