Mountain Biking the Gold Coast of Australia

Since getting Married to my Wife Sarah who was born as raised in Australia until she was 20 years of age I have been able to visit the amazing country 7 times. Each time I go I try and experience something more that the Gold Coast has to offer. On this trip I was spending three weeks at my in laws amazing house on the inlets of Hope Island where we are only an hr south from Brisbane, 15 minutes from Surfers Paradise and a hr from Byron Bay. There is so many amazing Surf spots but just In case the Surf is flat I make sure I have my bikes to ride. The road cycling is really good on the Gold Coast and my wife really enjoys road cycling, so I made sure I brought my road bike, but I wouldn’t be able to bring my mountain bike so I looked into some rental services around he area.

To my surprise I was able to link up with Michael Dobson who owns and manages Brisbane Mountain Bike Shuttles. I explained to him that I’d like to mountain bike in and around the Gold Coast for about two and half weeks. Doppo had just switched his fleet to Intense Cycles which is my bike of choice so I didn’t have to worry about getting familiar with a different model of bike. As soon as a landed in Australia I contacted Doppo to sort out my bike. I was greeted with a brand new Intense Cycles Rekluse which I haven’t spent much time on, so I was excited to rip this model.

The first day of riding I went out for a pedal with Dakar champion Toby Price, Guy Streeter and my brother in-law Andrew Reardon. We went to Nerang Forest where they will be hosting the cross country event for the Common Wealth Games. Nerang Forest is a very cool spot in itself. You park next to the community velodrome and pedal into a trail System with about 35 miles/60 kilometer of maintained and non maintained single track. They have a few bad ass trails that are a must hit Norco, Rocky Balboa, ” that are absolutely awesome for trail bike 140-160mm travel bikes and their are an enormous more amount of trails suited for XC bikes but no matter what you are on you can find something for everyone at Nerang in small amount acres with lots of trails.

The Next stop I went to was Mt.

Joyce. Mt. Joyce is about 90 min west of the Gold Coast last Ipswich. On this day We were using Doppo and the other side of other aspect of his business which is shuttling groups of 8 riders in his 4x4 and trailer to the top of your favorite local trail system where you can enjoy your day running Enduro/ or DH runs. His system of shuttling is the best I’ve ever been in. Very comfortable and efficient for a rural area, and you can enjoy a days worth of riding with out having to climb. The trails that I rode at Mt. Joyce are extremely fun but very technical and at some points I wished I had a 160mm travel bike. We ran about 5 trails and each one had some amazing natural and man made features. The local and state Enduro series holds its annual races at Mt. Joyce as well.

Crog the Concreter and my good friend Stu the Electrician Shred hard

My. Joyce gets Rowdy

I spent the next couple days on my road bike with my wife and took a break to hit the road bike on the coast. We had some great early morning rides up and down the coast until a car pulled in front of our group that ended up taking her down hard!!! This was my first experience of myself or a friend getting hit by a car while on a road ride so it shook us up a little bit. Luckily the crew at Giant Nerang helped us out and got her bike fixed before we left.

Sarah and I at Burleigh moments before she got hit

Now back to the dirt! The last couple afternoons had a crazy amount of rain and I was worried that my last few days might be done to ride trails because of so much saturation, but my friend Stu Cali said the a spot called Castle Hill in Ipswich would be good because it was rock base. Doppo from Brisbane shuttles met us out their as he is one of the original trail builders at this public trail network. This rad trail network has two up trails one being a access road with some steep pitches that takes about 6-7 minutes up and the other is cool a single track that climbs up through the forest that takes a bit longer to get to the top of 4 different descents all different in their own right. The small park also had a rad little pump track at the bottom of the downhill tracks.

Castle Hill Bike Park is full maintened local park

Other notable spots that are fun to ride around the Gold Coast is Cornubia, and and Daisy Hill more of a XC type of trail system that have some nice flow trails, Hinze Damn is also cool because of its rain first type single track also very XC type of trails. I haven’t ridden Mt. Tambo but the locals say it’s fun to shuttle on trail bikes. All in all people know the Gold Coast as one of the best Surf spots in the world by let me tell you they have strong community of mountain bikers and trail advocates that make it a great place to ride. If you are choosing a bike to bring I’d bring 150-160 and you can be comfy everywhere.

Azza the road paver ripping a turn.

This trip would not have been possible with out a bike or trail knowledge so I’d like to thank Michael Dobson and Brisbane Shuttle Services. If are a serious about mountain biking but love the beach vibe on and off the trails put the Gold Coast of Australia on the bucket list to visit! The country produces some great riders like Troy Brosnan, Jack Moir, and Jared Graves to name a few.