The route: Canberra airport – plane – Sydney airport – Wolli Creek – train – Glenfield – Moss Vale – Goulburn – train – Canberra
Having confirmed what seemed a viable folding bikepack arrangement, it was time to see whether the idea could become a fun reality. A quick recap: packing and unpacking a bike is annoying and you definitely don’t want to do that for just a few days cycling. But you do have to do this if you want to travel by plane or even, in Australia, by intercity coaches and trains.
Hence the idea of a folding bike for bikepacking – something you can cycle to the airport or train station, pack in under 15 minutes, and go. This trip proves it: it can be done and opens up new adventure possibilities.
Flight to Sydney
Having previously experimented with flying with the folding bike, the next obvious step was to cycle to and from the airport. This proved to be even less complicated than I thought it could be – in about 10 minutes the bike was bagged for check-in, or reassembled ready to head out of the terminal. The only real trick is finding an appropriate location for packing/unpacking – kudos to Canberra airport for an undercover outside area where this is possible, and in Sydney there is a large area at the eastern end of the T3 luggage carousels.
A quick plug for flying Qantas when going with a bike – I know everyone’s experience is different but I find them incredibly easy to use: provided you are within your ticket’s limits for number of pieces and weight, bike bags and boxes have always been totally fine. I’ve checked bikes a lot now, and unfailingly the Qantas staff have been helpful. A massive benefit of Qantas, particularly off-peak, is that most people self check-in their luggage meaning the queues to see a staff member to check in a bike don’t ever seem that long (even somewhere like Sydney or Melbourne!). Again, I’m sure there are folk who might have had a different experience, but that is mine from over 10 trips with a bike.
Getting out of Sydney
Cycling in Sydney takes quite a bit of planning. I’ve done it a bit (see, for example, Day 6 of this trip), but it is not the simplest to find routes that don’t throw you into a main road with no verge. With that in mind I decided to take the train to Glenfield, and pick up the Camden Valley Way Cycleway from there.
There is no issue with taking a bike on Sydney trains, including metro and intercity services. This is very useful given the extent of the network. You can also take the train directly from the airport. It is, however, significantly more expensive than starting at Mascot or Wolli Creek stations – as at November 2024 $17.24 is added to the fare for using an airport station. This is a lot when the peak fare from Wolli Creek to Glenfield is only $6.01. And the further good news is that while it gets a little confusing close to the Wolli Creek station, there is great cycling infrastructure to connect to the station directly from the airport.
Once at Glenfield it wasn’t too tricky to get to Camden Valley Way. Also connecting directly to the start of the very nice M7 cycleway, the Camden Valley Way is a pleasure to use. Yes, you do travel alongside a busy road, but it is safe, well maintained and while it does cross a lot of roads, it doesn’t feel like a constant stop-and-start affair. The path continues right to the heart of Camden after climbing up the short Herbert’s Hill.
Cycling Camden to Moss Vale
After a lunch refuel in Camden, the on-road cycling starts – including the noticeable commencement of climbing up towards the Southern Highlands. Burragorang Road had occasional traffic and a few climbs to get to The Oaks, at which point the cycling flattened out for a while on the undulating Montpellier Drive. If needed, public toilets and refuel options are available in The Oaks.
Other than a massive headwind, I very much enjoyed the cycling through to Buxton. You will see that the route is on typical country roads, generally offering interesting views and visibility of the road ahead. I’ve read that some people don’t like Wilson Drive, particularly between Hill Top and Colo Vale. Here the road does narrow, including through cuttings and scenic ridge running. I didn’t have any issues but can imagine an impatient driver or two could make this unsafe. If you don’t fancy this route, consider the Old Highway through Bargo – from Tahmoor onwards the road is wide and verge often generous (see Day Two here).
Once at Colo Vale there are back roads and paths through to Mittagong, where a cold one (or two) is available at Eden Brewery. Lots of outdoor seating, as well as a huge warehouse of tables inside mean you shouldn’t struggle for somewhere to take a break.
After the Brewery stop, the final challenge is to cycle over the hill to Bowral. Thankfully in Bowral there is the very nice Bong Bong Cycleway to connect to, providing a well planned and peaceful off-road route through to Moss Vale.
Cycling Moss Vale to Goulburn
I’ve cycled between Moss Vale to Marulan before, and the busiest (if you could call it that) is between Moss Vale, Exeter and Bundanoon. On this Saturday morning, however, Mount Broughton Road had very limited traffic.
After a fantastic bacon & egg roll and coffee at Bundanoon’s DeliLicious (seemingly very popular with locals) the Highland Way takes you to Marulan. It is a lovely country road that I always feel should be full of cars, but never seems to be.
Unfortunately at the end of the Highland Way there is a short Hume Highway stretch to get into Marulan (where there are bakery, cafe and supermarket options for a refuel). To get to the backroad Goulburn route you have to rejoin the highway at the northern end of town, pass the BP and then exit onto Jerrara Road. Thankfully the required 3.5km provides a verge that is massive, albeit full of debris.
Jerrara and Mountain Ash Roads are very quiet, and offer a lovely route through to Goulburn. Of course you could go on the highway, but this is definitely not recommended – not only is the noise bad, but there are some bridges with virtually no verge. Not nice. Jerrara Road takes you to Bungonia (from here are back roads (including gravel) to Tarago and Bungendore) but the idea is to try the train. After a pretty decent climb on Mountain Ash Road, the descent to Goulburn is good fun.
Train to Canberra
Arriving at Goulburn station, I had my ticket booked and was ready to go after packing up the bike. On boarding, the train attendant informed me there was no space for large luggage in my carriage, but I would be able to store my bag in another one. I was asked what was in my luggage, and was told that while it met the size requirements I really should have checked a bike in. I don’t really understand that – I think it was more a point that there is limited on-train luggage space for bags that don’t fit in the overhead racks. Having said that the staff were super helpful, I put the bag on a large luggage rack and off we went. No problems – and 1.5 hours later I was back in Canberra.
What did I learn?
First and foremost, travelling with a folding bike on planes and trains is absolutely no problem. I am already starting to think about the next adventure.
But the key question is: can folding bikepacking be a thing? Yes it can, but you have to be realistic about the distance you can cover, and the effort involved. Probably the major (and unsurprising) lesson is that significant hills and headwinds are the enemy of this folding bike’s speed. The first day’s ride to Moss Vale was not easy, and the average pace (16.9 km/h over 108km) backs this up.
Interestingly, day 2 still involved climbing, but the complementary downhill to go with the uphill, lack of headwind, and gentler inclines made for a much faster trip (20.5 km/h over 96km). I could happily have gone another 40km of similar terrain, but I’m not sure I’d plan on heaps more in advance given you just don’t know what the weather will do.
So the major lesson is that it is better to plan conservatively when going on a foldie – for me I would say I’ll plan to do 20% to 25% less distance and climbing in a day than on my other bikepacking arrangements. Although, see my next trip here….
CyclingGravel 