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Lake Parramatta XC Loop (and Carlingford Link) Tour
Meet at Lake Parramatta Car Park: PARRAMATTA. Turn from Church St, into Burke St, into Illawong Dr.
I'll be on a small shiny 08 Trance.
The ride will not follow the technical walking track around the actual lake. That walking track is busy on weekends with walkers of all ages, and has cliffs. The ride will go from the Car Park to the popular XC loop. It will also include showing where the loop connects with the cycleway that leads to Jenkins Road Carlingford. You can easily ride from Lake Parramatta to Lane Cove National Park (done it). That could be another day.
This trail is slightly intense, in that it is compact and has significant variety of terrain. I take it pretty easy. The actual loop takes about 35 mins at a slow pace (staying under 165 bpm all the way). Parramatta sandstone can be sharper in places too... like some of the single track up high on Manly Dam. There are some lengthy rocky loose downhill sections that can be tricky if you let you speed creep up, or do not stay back enough from the seat. Some very tight & short technical climb turns too. If you can ride Manly, or belt down a loose bit of trail on Long Track Terry Hills, you should be fine. You might want to look over a couple of obstacles first on the first lap.
A highlight is a short well groomed snaking S-bendish level trail that is of high quality XC.
Lake Parramatta trail drains remarkably well, we will be following contours well up from a creek. If there has been a storm but it has stopped raining, I will be there. It is rocky and drys out faster than anything I have found in the Sydney area.
The Kiosk near the Car Park (which is like a mini-restaurant) is a nice spot to sit and have a meal/drink after.
I think the gates close at 7:30pm in daylight saving. Check sign as you drive in. Lots of entertainment for non-riding companions. e.g: if you plan to have somebody entertain your children there while you ride. It's a nice place, great scenery.
There is a tap near the Kiosk on the grass.
Were you there and have a story to tell?
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Went there once for an explore I didnt enjoy it that much as we went around the lake which wasnt a great ride keen to have another look at some other trails out there.
Yep, if you don't know where your going it can get ugly.
Great suff Noel, looking forward to catching up & jumping on the bike after such a long spell.
riding to be had, last time out there we found some really nice techy bits (after getting lost and phoning Noel, who put us right). Had a spectacular OTB as well, plenty to keep you interested.
I went for a few night laps yesterday and saw a Bush regeneration sign at the entry of the Wildlife Sanctuary on Bettingtion Rd for this Sunday.
I cant make it.
ashame to miss this one
sounds like a great cruise around
this has got to be closer to home than Manly for "local" ride, so sounds like a good place to explore.
Let me know when you're riding from here to Lane Cove NP - I'd be into that one as well, since Lane Cove is even closer to home!
Time to finally visit the lake. I'm guessing this is Yeti territory?
I am out for now might be a maybe depends on the boss will see on the day.
I can't make the ride but would be keen to be able to download and do it some other time.
Haven't been on bike for a few months, nice & close to home.Theres always Bidjigal Reserve if to crowded!!!
Well it's a short course and the pace will be slower than racing/training so yeah i think the Yeti, for the added fun factor. Just about any bike will do it though.
Here is a some vid from Lake Parra:
http://youtu.be/fawFvWPb22Q
Close to home for me as well, so would like to join you for an explore.
I couldn't make it to this one, 'cause someone stole my car!
Well technically my wife was late back picking up my daughter from a birthday party... Either way I didn't have a car to get there until after you lot would have already left.
Next time, eh.
Hope you all had a great ride - good day for it, not like yesterday would have been!
Thanks Noel, great ride, good company. Hope you pull up alright Rob!!!!
As requested:
Very nice riding and lots of fun. However, this was a slight understatement:
Should have read, "There's loads of technical stuff here and plenty to send you OTB... twice... smashing your left elbow both times... ouch!..."
So I take it that it wasn't like Centennial Park then?
Well - there was water and a picnic area if that's what you're looking for
Pictures will be coming soon.
should have read my earlier post, did enjoy it though.
@Harry. Ah... yeah.
The fact Riz showed all padded up should have been a give away too. Doh!
I've left skin on some of those rocks..... it's the loose stuff on the down hill sections that can leave you eating dirt. Great riding track!! Thanks for posting the ride Noel. Great to meet you all.
Thanks to Noel for posting a great ride...well planned and lots of fun..
avg speed of 5km was due to the great number of rocks....lol..
some excellent downhill bits and sniggle...creek areas are much fun to ride!
occasional walkers are regular on the open sections...
Rob thanks for posting the garmin...and OTBing right in front of me... ;)+
Bike was sweet and dialled in...no dramas....great first ride on the Trance.
Great pics,but did I see someone without a helmet on LOL?
Cheers to Noel for posting this, and all the other riders who turned up to make this an enjoyable ride. Being quite local I never realised that these trails existed, sure I had been around the lake before(which is more suited for walkers) so never really bothered.
I'll be back for sure
That was awesome seeing that young dude do that jump. Actually seeing him do a whole bunch of stuff was pretty inspiring. Shows what 'can' be done I guess (if your skilled as much as friggen crazy).
Thanks for doing photos and gps data Rob.
Yeah some bits certainly are tricky. I tend to walk the tricky bits to reduce the likelihood of an 'unplanned event'.
The pictures are geo-coded, view them in Google Earth/Maps using this KML:
http://nobmob.com/kml/term/3017
Eg: http://maps.google.com.au/?q=http://nobmob.com/k...
So your camera has a GPS in it and remembers where it took the photo yeah?
Technology! One day I got to get me one of them computer things with the punch cards and that.
No... I have a script that will match up the timestamp on the picture with those in a GPS trace (GPX or TCX) and figure out where the picture was taken based on that.
Note that some images are a little bit 'off' as the clocks weren't perfectly sync'd. One can account for this but couldn't really be bothered for these images - they are close enough.
it's not enough you went ...
you GPS'd and picced!
and
and
and
bows!! the google maps link is great
yeh, the time stamping, i figured that one day, have to set the camera time to the GPS tracker time display which is satellite accurate.
real good at daylight savings changeover when you forget to re-set and it's out an hour!
sorry for bringing up a long dead thread, but is that photo "lake parramatta hik-a-bike" taken at the fence into kings??
you know where the big log on the fire trail is before the creek it looks like it is there going up too the fence line , which can be ridden down . I just rewatched the video the sections I remembered which were smooth then are very eroded away by the rain & alot more is exposed especially the fire trail going in .