Biking Australia
 

Anyone out there ever done serious biking in Australia with long hauls?<BR><BR>Mahalo<BR>the coconut wireless

Yes

care to share your experience? what you would recommend --not recommend--where you biked? tips?<BR>Mahalo<BR>the coconut wireless

I personally didn't do it but my husband has while I did the driving with all the equipment in the car. <BR>Where are you thinking of going? What are you riding? How long do you want to take? What do you want to see? <BR>Is Perth to Brisbane a long enough ride for you? I think it was about 5,000 Klms<BR>he did. Or perhaps Darwin to Bribane?<BR>Let me know.

<BR>There was a great two part article in National Geographic by a guy who did this a few years ago (maybe 1999 or 2000?)Gave lots of details and made me want to haul out the old panniers and bike shorts!<BR>Aloha from the niele network

that sounds like it might be an excerpt from Cold Beer and Crocodiles. GREAT book to read if you're interested in biking around Australia.

Do you want to die of heat exhaustion, sunstroke or worse? Seriously though, it's about the last thing I would ever want contemplate. Have you heard the one about the guy on a motorbike who saw a car coming and fell off in his endeavours to get out of the way. When he picked himself up five minutes later, the car was still some way off in the distance coming towards him. This is how big Oz is.

Hi Coconut,<BR><BR>First off I will tell you that I am not a bike rider but I have seen many riders doing the journey from Port Augusta to Ayres Rock and Alice Springs.<BR><BR>I got to hand it to those people as it is the most inhospitable piece of road that I could think of to ride a bike on.<BR><BR>I have driven up and down that road hundreds of times and seen ambient temps in the 50's celcius. Also the wind can blow at gale force across the plains.<BR><BR>If you do decide to ride long distance through the center of Australia then be very wary of our roadtrains, they are over 57 meters long and they don't stop for anyone once they are under full steam. They create one hell of a vacuum when they pass you and some riders have unfortunately been sucked into the wheels of the roadtrain. The drivers don't even no they have hit you until they stop and inspect their rig at their next port of call. We had a Swedish rider killed last year in this fashion.<BR><BR>Cheers<BR><BR>Paul