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Visiting Sydney from the UK

By JoetheshowUK - Posted on 15 November 2012

Hi guys,

I'm coming to Sydney for 2.5 weeks from December 24th to January 10th, not sure where im staying yet but probably be somewhere quite central. I ride loads in the UK and want to check out the trails you have to offer over there! Most of ours are under water at the moment So I'm hoping for dust out there!!

Firstly, where are the best places to ride? Secondly, where can I hire a decent Mountian bike from? I ride a lappierre spicy 516 but I'm bringing my trials bike with me to get round the city, so want to hire a decent MTB to ride the trails on. Any tips and advice much appreciated!

Cheers,

Joe

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Northern Beaches

Manly Dam + The Oaks

Submitted by Rob on Thu, 15/11/2012 - 07:29.

Assuming you are in central Sydney (the 'city') your best bet is to take the ferry to Manly (top tourist activity anyhow) then ride up to Manly Dam for a lap.

The Oaks up in the Blue Mountains is also one of the few trails you will be able to reach on public transport. Take the train from Central Sydney to Woodford, ride down to Glenbrook. Either ride back up if you feel like it or take the train home from there. Too easy.

Details of both these in the 'Rides' section on this site. If you have definite dates in mind and post in the calendar here you might get some locals to show you around.

Bike hire here is a bit harder. I'm out of the loop on this, hopefully someone will chime up to help out.

I'm off work most of the time

Submitted by Pete B on Thu, 15/11/2012 - 07:37.

I'm off work most of the time you're over here and always keen for a ride. Send me a message a bit nearer the time and I'll come pick you up and we can hit Ourimbah and Awaba for the day. I have a spare Felt Q820 if you want to borrow that for the day? I'll see if there are a few others who are up for a ride too.

Hornsby will be open then

Submitted by Simon on Thu, 15/11/2012 - 07:37.

And a train ride from the city.

Get off and head to Quarry Road to get to the trail head.

Hornsby

Submitted by BT on Thu, 15/11/2012 - 11:51.

So when is the opening? Pretty soon, isn't it?

Bike Hire

Submitted by StevieG on Thu, 15/11/2012 - 12:51.

My brother is making the trip out in January too and we wanted to hit the trails together so I did a lot of hunting around for bike hire places. There seemed to be plenty of regular rental places where you could hire a beach cruiser for a couple of hours but not so many places with serious equipment for hire.

Then I found these guys http://www.re-zycle.com/ who seem to have a fleet of Cannondales for hire. I've booked one in for January and dealt with Neil who was pretty helpful in helping me decide what to hire based on the trails we were planning to hit.

They're just on the north side of the harbour too so easy to get to via public transport from the city.

Good luck!

Hornsby MTB Park

Submitted by Winco on Thu, 15/11/2012 - 16:16.

Being a local monitoring development and talking to the Synergy Trail guys who are building the trail, my latest understanding is that it is due to open early to mid December. Synergy Trails are still working on the final stages of the trail build and council still have to erect signage. There will be 3k of flowing and technical (Blue and Black options) trail in stage 1. Eventually there will be 6k including Green for newbies.

Submitted by JoetheshowUK on Thu, 06/12/2012 - 06:52.

Cheers for all the info guys.

Submitted by JoetheshowUK on Thu, 06/12/2012 - 06:50.

Cheers for all the info guys. Ive got a bike sorted from the 27th of December to the 9th of January. Hopefully be riding every day, it snowed here today so can't wait to ride some dry dusty trails!! Are there any big rides going on between Christmas and new year?
Also thinking about hiring a car and taking a trip out to Canberra for a day. Worth the trip would you say? Or is there plenty to keep me entertained closer to Sydney?

Cheers,
Joe

Ayup

Submitted by philberesford on Thu, 06/12/2012 - 09:05.

Ayup Joe
Good to see you've got yourself a ride sorted. Doubt they'll be much if any any organised rides going on whilst your here. However the guys on this site will be posting group rides no doubt so keep an eye on the Group Rides page here http://nobmob.com/rides/calendar

Sure, if you have time, go to Canberra, it's only a 3hr drive, ride Stromlo, Kowen and Sparrow Hill. If you do get a car there's plenty of trails around Sydney to keep you entertained too. If you head north there's Ourimbah and Awaba. Heading South you have Appin and Mt Annan and out West there's Yellowmundie. These are all nice single track XC circuits.

If you want to do some longer xc epic style riding then you MUST ride the Great North Road (North West). IMHO it's the best MTB ride in the Sydney area as an expat myself it feels like you're getting see the real Australia out on this trail. If I could only get one day of riding then this where I would go. It's quite remote though so don't go out there alone, take someone with you. I might be up for it if I'm back in Sydney by then.

If you don't have a car but still want to get out then take the train up to Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains and ride the Oaks and Andersons. It's a nice 100km round trip with the first 50km all climbing but worth it for the second 50 so bring your best legs with you.