Eden Forest in Paradyskloof is one of the original playgrounds for our town’s mountain bikers. Some of the very first MTB trails were built here in the 1990’s – long before mountain biking became a mainstream sport. The original “explorers” simply went into the pine forest and carved out lines by hand. Nowadays Eden Forest is also one of the last trail areas where one can ride, run and walk in the shade of many fully-grown trees.

However, these same old pine trees cause havoc each year – like we saw in April 2024, when strong winds caused over 100 trees to fall. For more than five months Eden Forest was basically off-limits, with massive trees lying over most of the trails and service roads. The municipality eventually appointed a contractor in August to remove and salvage the trees and their work is almost completed.

From 1 October, the STF team will tackle the trails in Eden and repair them as soon as possible. And, as Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste!”. We want to use this opportunity to significantly enhance the main MTB trail coming down Eden Forest. The current trail is rutted with tree roots and its corners totally warn out. We’ve appointed Bennet Nel (of Jonkershoek and The Doctor fame) to do this work.

Specialized Stellenbosch helped us with (literally) truck-loads of soil (from their demolished pump track) and Bennet will use this to restore and reshape the trail.

The project’s total budget (including truck and machine rentals) is R200,000. We call on all mountain bikers to support this project via donations.

Simply scan the QR code to make a Snapscan donation, pay by card or EFT into our bank account.

Please use “Eden Forest” as your payment reference.