Hi all,

I am off to Australia in the new year provisionally for a year hopefully longer! Starting off in Brisbane and moving abou from there. I of course will have to ge myself a bike of some sort so wondering if there are any notable places to visit while there (stuff more like our FOD/afan etc trail centres would be best as without guides finding out convenional routes might be harder plus coming across creepies in the bush!).

I have come across this site that looks pretty good http://www.mtbdirt.com.au with it in the brisbane area the Mt Coot Tha/Gap trails and Daisyhill looks pretty good! The site lists its all, but not always clear what each site has trail wise and if any good!

So just after some suggestions really of good places to go, or if anyone knows other websites showing trail centres! Im more into XC/trail riding stuff suitable for 4-5″ bikes rather then crazy 6″ freeride stuff!

Are there any good online bike sites (like there version of http://www.paulscycles.co.uk !) Bike new in oz seem pretty cheap but 2nd hand they are quite a bit! So some sort of new old stock model might be good!

Cheers;

Harvey

Everyone out there is really friendly. Say hello to all other bikers you see and you will get plenty of invites to be shown around.
Finding your own way isn’t as much of an issue as I was expecting, I didn’t get lost at all nor bitten by any wildlife but the best trails aren’t always obvious, local knowledge is great.
.
(visited once, not a local)

Glad to hear mtbdirt is still going strong! Essentially you’ve named the major trail centres. I was a regular at Daisy. It does get busy and with limited trails you need some local knowledge to enjoy some “less utilised” trails. I’d suggest riding the known local stuff first as you will soon learn or spot the other trails. And most of these are XC type stuff that I would ride on my old GT HT.

Mt Coot’tha is a proper fire road slog but the cafe at the top makes it worthwhile. As for bush riding, beware that Oz isn’t keen for you to ride in the reserves, so again ask around.

Lots of roadie stuff and Lbs’s but I don’t know of any major online Oz retailer.

Great climate, food, coffee and drink too but watch out for the Wildlife 🙂

Thanks for the replies guys.

You still out there Fandango? Yeah i didnt mean i was gonna go out in the protected areas etc, just thinking a little less chance of meeting a brown snake on routes used more regularly!

Was reading through the forum abou all the wildlife they meet! Hopefully i wont run into any! Now ive registered on the forum i see they quite often organise group rides so im sure i can tage along once i have a bike!