Cycling with purpose: Honouring my brother in the Cape Town Cycle Tour

Faiez Jacobs

I’ve lost count of the number of Cape Town Cycle Tours I’ve ridden (close to 20). That in itself tells you something: the Cycle Tour stops being a “once-off event” and becomes a marker of time a personal calendar written in sweat, wind, small injuries, recovery, and that stubborn decision to start again.

But 2026 is a special year for me.

This year I ride with a heavier heart, and with a clearer purpose. I’m dedicating this race to my brother, who is very ill. In families, illness is never only medical it becomes emotional, spiritual, practical, financial, and deeply human all at once. It forces you to look at your life differently. It brings you down to basics: breath, strength, prayer, care, presence.

And so I’m riding this year with my brother in mind. Not in a dramatic way, not for performance, not for spectacle but as a quiet act of love and solidarity. A reminder to myself that life is fragile, and that we must show up for each other while we still can. 

Why the jersey matters this year

I’m also doing something else this year: I’m putting on my ANC jersey again.

In the current climate, some people will read that and immediately want to turn it into a political argument for or against, praise or condemnation, slogans and counter-slogans. But that is not what I’m writing about.

I’m not naïve about the realities of our politics, and I’m not blind to the mistakes, the disappointments, and the justified anger of our people. I’ve lived the struggle. I’ve worked inside the movement. I’ve had my own moments of conflict, critique, and reflection. I know, intimately, the difference between an organisation’s ideals and the behaviour of some of its leaders.

But I also know this: critical does not mean disloyal.

There is a type of criticism that comes from cynicism and distance a performance of cleverness. And there is a type of criticism that comes from love, responsibility, and belonging. I remain convinced that South Africa needs people who can hold both truths: the courage to be honest about what has gone wrong, and the discipline to remain committed to the deeper project of justice, dignity, and liberation. I remain hopeful and focussed.

So, for me, wearing that jersey on this ride is not about pretending. It’s about remembering. It’s about roots. It’s about a history that is bigger than current headlines. It’s about saying: we can be in a period of hard internal argument and still practise solidarity not as blind loyalty, but as a form of collective responsibility. 

Friendship, accumulated over the year

The Cycle Tour has also been the home of friendships that have accumulated slowly over time, layer by layer, year by year. Some friendships start in politics, others in neighbourhoods, others in workplaces. Ours the friendship captured in that earlier IOL article began through global solidarity.

Back in 1997, at the COSATU National Conference, I met Norbert Biba, a German trade unionist and activist who had been involved in the anti-apartheid movement. Norbert is not a man who seeks the spotlight. He’s the kind of person who quietly commits to a cause and stays with it long after the cameras move on.

Over the years, our friendship matured. What began as political comradeship became something more human: family-level friendship the kind where you don’t have to explain your entire history each time you meet. You just pick up where you left off.

Cycling gave that friendship a rhythm. For Norbert, coming from Frankfurt and putting on his football jersey, riding the Cape Town Cycle Tour was always more than tourism. It was an act of connection to a city, to friends, to a story of solidarity that stretched across continents.

And for me, it was a reminder that the struggle against apartheid did not belong only to South Africans. Many people across the world chose a side not because it was fashionable, but because it was right.

The pre-race ritual: the road to Tietiesbaai

Over time, a group of us developed our own ritual before the Cycle Tour: the ride up the West Coast from Melkbosstrand to Tietiesbaai, near Langebaan.

It’s a long ride, and it is not always glamorous. The West Coast wind can humble you quickly. But that’s part of the point. It teaches you to pace yourself. It teaches you to stay in the saddle even when comfort disappears. It teaches you that resilience is not a motivational quote it is a decision you make repeatedly.

On that road, you don’t just train your legs. You train your temperament. You remember the value of companionship. You learn to ride in a way that keeps others safe. You learn to stop for someone who is struggling, because the group is only as strong as its weakest rider.

That is how friendships deepen: not through grand speeches, but through small consistencies.

Ageing, humility, and 'muscle memory'

At this stage of life, finishing time is no longer the story. I’m not trying to compete with the strongest riders in the field. I respect them but I ride a different race now.

I ride with humility.

I ride with the knowledge that my body is older, my schedule is heavier, and my responsibilities are many. I ride knowing that training is sometimes replaced by something less reliable but still real: muscle memory the body’s quiet remembrance of Chapman’s Peak, of the drag of the wind, of the long pull of Suikerbossie, of the final stretch where you discover what you still have left.

And I ride with gratitude that I am still able to do it.

The medals and the meaning

There is a photo we keep the medals around our necks, the smiles that only cyclists understand: part pride, part relief, part laughter at what we’ve survived.

It’s not the medal that matters. It’s what it represents: persistence, friendship, and the refusal to quit.

A word to cyclists, and to Cape Town

To every cyclist lining up this year whether you’re chasing a sub-3, aiming for a safe finish, or riding for someone you love, I wish you well. Ride with discipline, ride with awareness, ride with kindness. Respect the road and respect each other.

And to Cape Town: we welcome everyone, as we always do. That is part of who we are a city of visitors, a city of movement, a city of coastline and mountain and contradiction. But we must never forget where we come from. We must never lose our roots. We must never forget what matters: dignity, solidarity, and the human responsibility to show up for each other.

This year I ride for my brother.

This year I wear my ANC jersey again not as a slogan, but as a memory and a commitment.

And this year, like every year, I remind myself of an old truth:

The road is long. The wind will come.

But we ride anyway. Together.

* Jacobs is a former Member of Parliament, founder of The Transcendence Group, Capetonian, Activist, and Servant of the People.

Weekend Argus