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City Trails?
Aloha!
I'm new here in the forum, and newish to MTBing in Australia (just moved here in April '06.)
I currently live in Randwick. Do any of you guys know of any trails or anything similar to a trail around here? Its always time consuming getting to the mountains or the North Shore. (not really that it's a problem, just takes time).
Centennial Park isn't bad, and its at my doorstep.
Any suggestions, or people wanting to go for a ride around here - that would be cool!
cheers,
Flo
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I only like riding out in single trails or fire trails. I never ride on the road, or in a city or urban area. As I only know about rides that you confirm are on the north shore and a bit of a hike to travel to, I could not recommend any alternatives for you. I could suggest trying a more thorough search on the net to see if there are any bike clubs for the city areas. Cheers
...Trail wise round there, I think Centennial Park might be your best bet.
Alternatively, buy yourself a pair of baggy jeans, pull up your daks to show off the novelty set you got for Christmas and take to street riding! It's pretty cool trying to find things in parks to step up, roll off or just practice track stands, wheelies and manuals etc. It can be just as fun as trail riding so don't limit yourself to just that, the more time on the bike the better I reckon, what works on the trails works just as well off them and vice-versa.
From what I know, there is a Y! group that do an 'Urban Assault' once a month if it's your thing. Think they meet on the North Shore and go over the bridge and play around in the city.
Think this is the one: Sydney North Shore MTB.
You could also have a look down in the Royal National Park, Lucas Heights/Menai (which we must to and map, 'cos I hear it's awesome) and such. Probably still a trek, but maybe not as far.
Agreed! Lucas Heights/Menai (near ANSTO) and RNP are nice places to ride...but they're probably both as far from Randwick as the north. Not sure how you'd get to Lucas Heights/Menai on public transport...
They're both closer to me than the north, I've got a Garmin eTrek that I take when me when riding, not sure whether that can do the sort of mapping thats on the site, I've never been able to get it to talk to my computer properly (or have the software).
I almost have my shoulder back again from last time I stacked it at Menai; was planning to have an easy ride in the RNP tomorrow morning.
RNP morning of the first? Sorry, was on a plane
Anyhow - regarding GPS S/W - the stuff that comes with the Garmin units sucks - IMHO, that is
MotionBased is your friend. Their agent will import from any Garmin unit and make a handy diary of your trips - very nice. If you have GPS of Menai would love to see it
I've been longing for somebody to map Menai or show me round the place, I've had an explore already and it looks great.
Any chance you'd fancy playing tour guide barbie??
Ta,
Matt.
I've only been there a handful of times myself so I don't think I'd make a good guide, but some mapping and photography is in order...I think I'll have to do more exploring and try and get some rides mapped out. Going to wait for that body armour first when shops open again this week though, not really wanting another shoulder operation this year =\
Howdy,
New member here.
I ride most weekends at Menai. Usually meet up in the ANSTO carpark and head straight accross the road into the trails from there.
Im planning to grab a GPS from work and map out some of the trails and features soon.
There is tonnes of riding in there from easy to quite technical and some NS has been built in there too.
I can let people know when i heading in next if interested. (Usually Sunday meet around 10am - am riding St Helenas this w/e)
Hey, that's good news on the map front.
I've been thinking of starting a number of 'stub' ride reports - stuff that we've heard of but don't know enough about to write more on or map. That way good folk such as yourself can come along and fill in the blanks. Would it help to share how our maps were put together? The most important thing is to sync your camera clock to the GPS when starting out (that way there are scripts available to auto-magically place 'pins' in Google Earth where pictures are taken) and get the trail up on MB.
Was saying to another guy earlier - must try not to go back to old places until the other stuff is properly explored - although having said that, there's that new stuff in Oxford Falls that needs adding to our map.
So many trails - so little time
Rob... off to fix the bike now for tomorrow's trail.
G'day my new best mate monkey... Any time you want to ride Menai I'll pop along, just put up a post on the site if you don't mind? I figured there was a heap of riding in there but didn't see any NS after 3 hours of exploring, looking forward to that! Some spectacular looking stuff too.
St Helena's is pretty good too, but pack your walking boots for the way out!
Ta,
Matt.
PS - You probably know this already but if you park at the car-park by Lucas Heights Oval on the Old Illawarra Road you get some more good looking singletrack with great views between there and New Illawarra Road, not very long but a good warm up.
PPS - here's one somebody's come up with already http://fatboysbicycleclub.wikispaces.com/Menai, needs a bit more detail methinks.
I'm new to the mapping thing so ill see how I go. Ill have to check we have the right bits and pieces at work for me to use. As for syncing clocks. (How?) Can I not just mark waypoints and put it together myself?
I have recently been exploring more of the trails in Menai, hence the discovery of the NS stuff. (Some smaller stuff and some new bigger stuff with 6ft drop offs!) There is a bit of walking involved around some parts but they are generally very short. (I'm also lazy and have a heavy bike with no granny) Most of the singletrack is in good condition, although there are some sandy parts which drive me nuts. Most of the trails hold up well and don't get to waterlogged after rain too.
I drive there from Bondi and it usually takes about 35-40 min. I go via the M5 and Fairford/Davies/Old Illawarra Rd.
Have not done the run from the oval on the other side of the road. Will have to look into it next ride. I park in the ANSTO car park because security is good with cameras on the cars.
Well, to get photos and stuff onto a map you can do things manually of course - and this is how I started...
Download GPS track into Google Earth, find point on path where you were (or think you were) when photo was taken, create point, repeat... You can also create waypoints on your GPS at every time you take a picture which means less editing in GE, but at the time of shooting this very soon becomes tedious. In fact, either of these manual ways becomes tedious with lots of pictures.
If you sync your camera's clock to GPS' (just a matter of going into your camera settings and making sure it's date/time is the same as that shown on the GPS - which will be super accurate due to... well... it being a GPS unit and needing to know the time to do it's job) then I have a fancy little script that will add GPS co-ordinates to the pictuers afterwards. This works by looking in the path you made with the GPS (no need for waypoints) and working out exactly where you were at the time the picture was taken (the points in the path are time-stamped, as are pictures from your digital camera, so voila!).
I should write an article about this - and include those handy scripts for anyone else to follow, eh? We've been asked about this a few times already.
That would be good Rob. I went back to Menai today for a quick ride...it got overwhelmingly hot, but I tried out MotionBased and its very cool! Here it is: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/player/1847704
Heres some happy snaps
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~sunny_l/biking/I...
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~sunny_l/biking/I...
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~sunny_l/biking/I...
Hey, very nice... although...
The pictures say they were taken between 9:31am and 9:51am, but the GPS thinks you were riding between 10:15am and 11:19am. I'll take a punt the camera is 1 hour behind 'cos you haven't set it since daylight savings? Although that being the case it's probably that hour out plus a bit more. Can you take a quick look at it's clock and let us know how far it's out?
A good plan is to take a shot of the GPS screen that shows it's time (turn on camera macro to avoid the blurs)... this way you have a permanent record of the exact difference.
Oh - you can add pics directly here from this link (it's 'image' under 'create content' on the left there):
http://nobmob.com/node/add/image
I've stashed them in the Menai gallery for you. Erm... assuming you want them there. Owned by yourself so you can edit/delete/whatever you wish
Nice pics
Now when are we going to ride this trail ???
Evan
ahh my bad! Yes you're right, the camera was 1 hour and 33 seconds slow compared to the GPS. I've re-uploaded the pictures with the EXIF timestamps fixed (the create content page doesn't seem to show the images after submitting them though...in fact they've disappeared after trying to edit them with pics that had the timestamps fixed)
Ah... when you create new content it goes into a moderation queue so needed releasing.
Soooo... does this have them in about the right place?
Oh, found these at MB also
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view....
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view....
Loads to play with down there, are any of these trails named? Do we know what the story with this land is also? It's not national park, Crown land perhaps?
Yep they look about right...not sure about names, didn't exactly notice any signage anywhere.
Not sure if anyone would want land that close to a nuclear reactor
That stuff look good. Seems a few of the trails have been mapped.
There is tonnes of stuff in there though so would be a few exploratory rides to map most of them.
Seems there is a chance to make up some names for trails too. Could be fun.
Im out this w/e as ive just sent my forks off for service. Hopefully will be back in there in 2 weeks.
FYI you were right about the St Helenas walk out. Crikey. Trained it from Emu plains to Woodford so we could do the run through the reserve into Emu plains. Must say the St H trail if fantastic at pace, walk out would have been better with a light bike though.
I was passing thru that way, the bike was in the car, the sun was out for the first time in days, i knew any off-road would be soaked.......gave it a run.
Firstly, Its free to park! Surprise to me...and loads of parking spots. 6km? along the main circular route. But loads of areas around the edges of ovals and stuff, where nobody is around, with lots of small jumps and stuff. Probably not ideal for a big group, or for anyone wanting a real work-out, or anything other than a "emergency ride". But, after all this rain, I really enjoyed this surprise.....I can actually say i exercised this weekend.
Mike