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Tourist needs info about mtb in the Blue Mountains
G'Day,
I'm going to visit Australia in January 2012 for my first time. At the end of my stay there are a few days left and I'm thinking about mountainbiking in the Blue Mountains. Unfortenately it's harder than I thought to find any information about in the web.
So I hope that you can give me these information or can give me some advice where I can find them.
I think I'm going to Katoomba by train, and I'm searching for:
- recommended accommodation
- bike rental ( where, available bike models, prices .... )
- bike tours; guided or available GPS-tracks
...and everything else you can imagine connected with this ...
Thanks in advance for your help
regards
Max
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Hey there
Global rider sites will have all the ride info you need
nobmob.com is the base but www.bmorc.com and www.ctmbc.net will have the area specific stuff (just cut and past bmorc.com or ctmbc.net in for the nobmob.com part of the adress
)
http://nobmob.com/rides/bluemountains
and it's also worth while checking out the stuff a little to the west
http://nobmob.com/rides/centralwestranges (especially the stuff around Lithgow ,Hassans walls rydal and Newnes Plateau, which can be accessed by train from Katoomba)
Also if you look at the calendar
http://nobmob.com/rides/calendar
Plenty of social ride get posted or you can add your own and just state you are looking for locals to show you around.
Hirewise, as far as I know there is not much in the mountains itself at the moment
but I may be able to sort you out at insane cycles Lithgow.
gps link here that i found
and another site with some blue mtn tracks
http://www.users.on.net/~fathers/narrneck.htm
enjoy
G'day Max,
Flynny is probably your best bet for a bike. Hire bikes are not easy to get.
I don't know if there is much in the way of guided tours, but as stated. Post a ride up on the calendar that you want to do closer to the date when and where and ask for a guide. Chances are a local or someone just wanting to tag along will join you. Weekends are Ideal.
In your "My account -> edit -> access and content" you can set your default home page and enable which associated sites you would like to view. I use bmorc.com (Blue Mountains Off Road Cyclists) as my home page for these forums and have enable the ctmbc and nobmob.
Check out the Blue Mountains Ride Database here
Not knowing what your level of fitness is or what you are after. Here are my recommendations.
Narrow Neck is the closest to Katoomba. It is a fire trail out and back and has the best views available out of all the Blue Mountain rides. Its short at 13km making it roughly a 26km trip total.
the Oaks by far the most popular of tracks in the Blue Mountains. It starts not far from Woodford Train Station and takes you 28km to near Glenbrook Train Station. Roughly 20km of fire trail and 8km of Single Track. Extra length can be added on with out and back rides to Nepean lookout and/or Portal Lookout.
For an added challenge you can add Andersons onto the start of your ride to the Oaks. It starts not to far from Wentworth Falls Train Station and is 32km of mostly open Dirt road and fire trail to Woodford. Andersons + Oaks is a 60km Adventure. But as your visit will be in January, if the summer heat doesn't kill you, the climb from the creek up Mupheys Fire trail to woodford probably will.
If you are after some technical single track, Views and Australian Heritage. Mount York is the place to go. Located not to far from Mount Victoria Train Station. The trails were built by convicts around 1828. Best routes are downhill on Coxs or Lockyers, Riding uphill on Lockyers or Lawson Long Alley. Berghoffers pass you can ride down and up. here is a GPS trace of the epic at Mt York I done not so long ago which totaled 20km of riding.
As far as Accommodation goes, I would not be able to recommend a place as I have not stayed at any but check out the Google Search: Katoomba Accommodation or also check out here Bookings.com: Hotels in Katoomba