: Riverina rampage!

By: g | No Comments » |

Recently I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days in Griffith, NSW. Remembering that I used to spend a bit of time on my old bmx riding around the trails that lay on the hill Griffith fronts, as well as some of those lung busting climbs encountered during those cross country runs at school I thought I’d revisit some old stomping grounds with my mtb.

Griffith is around 700km south west of Sydney and 350km west of Canberra. If you were to pedal a road bike around the town you’d find that it’s pretty damn flat. This, for a lightweight like me meant it was never much fun as the big boys would drive at the front of the bunch using all their power and leave me puffing at (or out) the back.

Behind the town though is a reasonable sized hill, and it’s literally right
behind the town. From where I was staying, at the northern end of town it took me only a few minutes to make it to the lower fire trail. Unfortunately, I erred in choosing my access road up there and rode right through a patch of catheads (pic: catheads) that left me with two flat tyres. This and I hadn’t even warmed up! Lucky I was carrying two tubes and a patch kit…

I rode this fire trail in a southerly direction which takes you roughly back in the direction of town. Almost immediately I was riding some tracks which, despite being fire trail demanded a bit of attention. One thing I had forgotten was how rocky it is.

After riding a couple of kilometres in the south direction the trails tend
upwards towards a couple of lookouts and the town’s water tanks. This is where the traditional mtb communal meeting place would be if there was a group of people heading out, as you’re smack bang in the middle of all the tracks. (pic: lookout)

From the lookout there’s a choice of going back down the hill towards town, or like I did, across the road past the water tanks into a section of scrub in which I found some seriously fast rocky, swooping fire trail and also some quick downhill single track, some of which has little timber stairs cut into it. This was lots of fun as the stairs allow you catch a bit of air, but they were close enough together that combined with the jutting rocks and big gum trees there is the potential to make a slight error what you might euphemistically call ‘interesting’. (pic: bumpy run)

All this good fun takes will take you down to the other side of the hill,
away from the town proper, out near the airport and (a horse) trotting
track. Near the trotting track I found some remnants of a moto track. A bit surprisingly there weren’t any doubles or tabletops at this wide open track but there were a few monster gullies. They have quite a ‘U’ shape to them though, so there wasn’t any problems in getting in and out. (pic: gully.)

Time was getting a little bit short now, and I had seen some bits of single
track heading down from the lookout towards town, opposite to the way I’d come. Unlike the town side of the hill which required liberal use of the granny ring, this climb was able to be climbed comfortably in the middle ring.

And wouldn’t you know it, my nose, able to sniff out single track like a trained Beagle can find an ounce of coke in a shipping container, led me straight to a couple of bits of track which in one short length had it all from fast and flowing to slower but more technical. (pics: little drop, rocky run, flowing)

Some of this track had me turning around and doing it all again. I didn’t however fall into the trap of ‘just once more’ which generally has the effect of a rider sailing over the bars after getting a little bit too cocky. These tracks offer quite a bit. Raw beginners might have some difficulties riding pieces but it really would suit all skill levels, the faster you rode the track the harder it would get, and there are a few lines down each section for the more core riders out there.

By now it was well and truly starting to get dark so I headed towards home, riding across the top of the hill (pic: riding on rock). There is a walking trail which heads along the top of the hill which I followed and has a combination of fairly flat single track to smallish drop offs hit at speed to some quasi trials riding where you have the choice of riding a fairly narrow track or falling off the side of a rock 10 metres down to the next rock. Not being much of a trials rider I walked a couple of bits to be on the safe side.

The final piece of fun I indulged in was riding down some steps before heading straight down the side of the hill back home (pic: steps). Heading down this side of the hill back towards the houses you follow a track which is intended for walkers checking out the scenery, so consequently there are a few sections where I had to get off, hoist my bike on my shoulder and then get back on. Some of these sections would be ridable with a bit of practice and some more sunlight but I hadn’t fallen off so far and didn’t want to push my luck too far.

All in all I spent a bit shy of 2 hours riding around these hills and despite criss crossing tracks didn’t do any of them twice (except for the really fun bits). I have no doubt that given a bit of time you could quite easily set up a couple of sub 1 hour loops which would test most riders, particularly if you had the hammer down.

It is rocky though, and isn’t the sort of place I’d take skinny race tyres to. I rode a hardtail with a 100mm fork and 2.1″ knobbies and didn’t have too many problems except for the rear skipping around a fair bit. I feel that a good mid travel dually would be perfect, I might have a chat to Richard Bontjer about borrowing his Ethos next time I go down…

There don’t seem to be any problems between walkers and mountain bikers, but by the same token I don’t think there are too many mtb’ers riding around there at present. Griffith has a strong road racing club, and they are very traditional – lots of Italian frames and components get along the bitumen, and there generally isn’t much cross over. However, none of the trails have signs that ban bicycles, and I only encountered a couple of joggers the day I was there.

If you’re going to be out that way, take your bike.

Surly

 

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