Great Central Road

[federico]

hi guys, i'm federico from italy.
in august or september i would like to cycle the great central road solo unsupported, from laverton to yulara.

someone has informations about it?
road conditions, traffic, water, ecc ecc

sorry for my english!
thank you!

Federico

[Kalgrm]

Hi Frederico,

I've driven on it once, many years ago now. I doubt conditions have changed much, so I'll tell you what I know about it.

Firstly, it's not sealed, so plan to do it on a mountain bike. If you plan to tow a trailer, better get a BOB Ibex (the one with suspension). The track is rough on cars - we got at least one puncture a day in the Landcruiser as we travelled through.

Secondly, there are no towns, so take a lot of water. You've chosen a good time of the year to make the ride, but it sometimes still gets VERY hot in September. You may need to plan a water and food drop before you leave Laverton (or Italy?). It's a long way, so plan on a trip of about 3 weeks on the road.

Thirdly, you'll need to get a permit to travel through the Cosmo Newbury aboriginal community. That's simply a formality, but you need to know about it now - it can take a few weeks to organise. You won't be allowed to take photographs on Cosmo Newbury land as one of the conditions of the permit.

Forth - wear sunscreen. This is important, so don't forget it.

Cheers,
Graeme

(Edited to change name of trailer from Yak to Ibex - Kev's post below alerted me to the fact I had it wrong.)

[heavymetal]

From memory a ride was just done along that route or close to it. It was the ride for sustainability. His web site is currently down, but he is still on the road so it should be fixed shortly. His site is http://www.ozbybike.com.

I'm almost sure that he did this route or part of it.

You will need to carry lots of water or organise a water drop. You can usually do this by asking someone driving along the road to drop the water off at certain points and hide it off of the road.

Alan and Phil did the Holland Track south from Coolgardie. You can get an idea of some of the modified equipment they were using for this ride, and what happened to them in the heat. Their journal is on my web site here. They were using modified BOB Ibex trailers and were carrying over 41 litres of water between them.

Kev.