Cycling in Australia was mainly focussed around 2 simple words, repeated uncountable times: keep left. Yes, my greatest problem wasn’t wind, bad roads, hills, rain or whatever, but it was keeping to the correct side of the road. At times it was quite obvious to stay on the correct side of the road, but on small roads, cycling paths or roads with little traffic I sometimes ended up on the right side of the road… not good and to prevent that I had to keep saying to myself to keep left!

When I did kept left, cycling in and around Canberra is mainly great fun! As soon as you get a bit out of the city and end up on the highways, the cycling pleasure goes down a bit. Riding on the shoulder, full of stones and dirt with cars flying by at 100km/h, doesn’t make very relax cycling. But besides that, it’s quite nice!

Except for a ride along the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, it’s never really flat. Small hills provide a fun ride. Plus there are some challenging rides very close to the city as well. Take Mount Ainslie. Definitely a challenging climb with 2.5 km at an average grade of 8.6%… and knowing there is a small steep bump in the beginning of the climb and after that quite a long “doable” stretch, means that the end of the climb is much steeper then the average 8.6%… But then, with just a 2.5 km climb, it’s very doable! Even Sally “wiggled” her way to the top for the first time ever! :-)

The weather wasn’t that briljant for cycling the time I was in Canberra. With 12 degrees and without my cycling gear on a to small bike it could have been better. Although I must say I was very happy I could borrow Sal’s and her sister Pip’s bike to go for some rides! Already looking forward to take some rides in spring or summer. Black Mountain and Mount Stromlo will prove to be fun rides!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 28th, 2006 at 17:38 and is filed under Travel, Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.