'you call that a hill' - my daily cycle in the Blue Mountains

The first time I rode my mountain bike up Megalong Street hill, I dry-retched.

I needed a new bike, stronger legs and better-performing lungs.

I bought a road bike and, for the past eighteen months, have been working on the legs and lungs.

How can I say this, without sounding like an arrogant prig... but, I like riding up hills now. I actively seek them out. I'm willing to drive for a few hours to ride up the Category One climb from Kangaroo Valley to Moss Vale. Lovely hill that one - perfect road surface, tree cover so the sun is never a worry, and a relatively predictable gradient (average 7% over eight kilometres).

Living in the Blue Mountains, I don't usually have to go so far for hills. Five hundred metres to be precise...

Here's a saddle-eye view, no sorry, horrible image that one... here's a handlebar-eye view of my daily ride.

It's starts each morning with a right turn onto quiet Cliff Drive. I pedal towards the Great Western Highway, which is not great and barely a highway... but it does head west. Before the highway, I turn east towards Katoomba township, negotiate two roundabouts crammed with tourist buses and taxis before a whooping five hundred metre downhill followed by it's bully brother five hundred metre uphill climb, the aforementioned Megalong Street hill.

Easy.

Another roundabout at the 'quaint' village of Leura (Laura Ashley fudge-eating Audi drivers), and I'm riding along Railway Parade, always on the lookout for the 3801 steam-train that occasionally chugs up the mountain. Usually, it's just slow commuter trains and freight diesels.

I cross the highway soon after and I'm on a lovely six-kilometre circuit of Wentworth Falls. Admittedly, it's suburban cycling, but on a excellent road surface where I normally find a few king parrots to time trial against as the noise of my clunky gear-changing disturbs them from the roadside bottlebrush.

At Wentworth Falls village, pizza and pasta compared to Leura's goats-cheese souffl�, I cross the highway again and head down Falls Road. I'm scared of heights, so I rarely stop for a look at the steep waterfall.

Up through Leura again... no I don't want scones with jam and cream, then along the mall to another steep downhill glide into a beautiful grey gum forest beside the Leura Cascades before a short intense climb past Cafe Solitary, always looking left into the Jamison Valley. Next to the road, at a lower level, is the Prince Henry Walk, a cliffside meander between the villages for bushwalkers.

After another climb and downhill, I'm at the Three Sisters - the Blue Mountains tourist icon of three jutting rocks. And why does the air appear blue from the lookout as I cycle past? Something to do with gum trees and temperature and altitude.

Yet another downhill, past another waterfall and a hundred picnicing tourists, before my favourite section - a slow climb under the gum trees with two distinctive views of the Three Sisters and Mount Solitary before a quick circuit along Narrowneck Road, with views into the Megalong Valley and beyond.

One more quick climb and I'm home.

Thirty-six kilometres at an average speed of 23 kmh with a total ascent of 560 metres.

I've ridden along roads lined with planes trees, oak, Japanese maple and every genus of gum tree known to Sir Joseph Banks. I've kept riding instead of visiting three iconic waterfalls; numerous valley view lookouts; at least twenty-five cafes and the world's steepest railway at Scenic World.

In spring and autumn, the conditions are usually perfect with a temperature hovering around 18-20 degrees celsius. In winter, it's always below 10 degrees and I'm pushed to Wentworth Falls by a howling westerly. In summer, surprisingly, it's usually misty and wet. This summer I've had fewer than ten sunny rides. But, I'm not complaining. It's a glorious way to spend a morning.

And I haven't dry-retched once. Not any more.


I've written three travel ebooks on my cycling adventures across Europe. They sell for between $2.99 and $3.99, depending on which currency you use. You can visit my Amazon page here for the USA; here for the UK and here for Australia