Tour de Boland – A short timeline
It is reckoned that the ‘original’ TdB started as a multi-day stage race 50 years ago, and was run by the SACUS disenfranchised franchise, being the clubs and riders who were not part of the ‘official’ cycling structure in the country.
Reignition
The more recent and verifiable version is that a husband/wife duo from Worcester re-ignited the Tour after she became chair of the now-defunct Boland Cycling Union, circa 2004. It was kept going, and turned into a successful race by Hendrik Lemmer and Ian Goetham, just before Giro del Capo, ran in March, annually.
Brothers Lemmer
A few years later, Carinus Lemmer wiggled his way in there, as well as a few others, and for one year the Tour was known as the Le Coq Sportif Tour de Boland. The tour then took a break for a year, as it required a fair amount of sponsorship to be held.
Enter ASG Events
In 2012 the Tour skipped a beat, and ASG Events’s Wynand de Villiers offered the Tour a budget of R65k to help click the reset button for 2013. The provincial government of the Western Cape was a primary supporter for many years, up till 2013, after which the Boland Cycling Union ceased to exist, and funding disappeared in tandem. Men elite, junior, and veterans, both male and female, participated.
Erase & Rewind
ASG Events took over quite a few aspects (marketing, entry-system, timekeeping, accounting) of the 2014 & 2015 organisational elements of the Tour, while Jan Slabbert and Carinus Lemmer held on to the ‘ownership’ and day-to-day planning and management.
Welcome to your Tour
After the 2015 Tour it was decided to split up with ASG and the Tour de Boland was reset as a ‘sportive’ to great fanfare. 2016 marked our rebirth and a clear direction for the future. Welcome to the Original Tour de Boland. We present our flagship ride, annually, and source most of our participants from abroad. We cap our participant list to 50, and will rather run two tours back to back, with our capped numbers, as we do, with the support of inter alia the Emirates cycling crowd in Dubai. Our routes are on road (bitumen) and always a combo of Boland and Overberg regions, sometimes even starting in Cape Town, and going up the West Coast for a day. Yes, we do change things slightly, but we do have our favourite places, and routes, which we regularly frequent.
August 2021 Gravel Tour
A six day tour of the Boland- and Breede River Region
October 2021 Road Tour
We’re doing a Tour before the new Cape Town Cycle Tour early October.
March 2022 Gravel Tour
A relaxing 6 day tour on gravel
March 2022 Road Tour
Our traditional tour 5 day road before the Cape Town Cycle Tour.