Cycling from gungahlin to civic?

troll-sniffer said :

arescarti42 said :

This is how I’d probably do it:

1. Follow the off road bike path down Gungahlin Drive from the town centre
2. Follow the path down the Barton highway in to Lyneham.
3. Ride on the footpath down Ellenborough Street until you get to the inner north bike path
4. Follow the bike path down through Turner, O’connor etc. towards the ANU
5. The bike path will spit you out at Barry Drive at the city, proceed to wherever you’re going from there.

Once you get into the inner north there’s no real reason you need to stick to the bike paths. I’m on the back streets every day, left and right of Northbourne, and rarely do I have to watch my line due to traffic going both ways, generally on a lot of the streets I’m lucky to even encounter a car.

I will never ever do without my rear view mirror though, it’s as important as the one in my car and makes the commuting much safer all round.

But the bike baths are much nicer. As to 3. in arescarti42’s route, I think it is called Mouat Street on that side of Northbourne, if I am understanding the route properly.

Days like today my bike is cruelly neglected.

arescarti42 said :

This is how I’d probably do it:

1. Follow the off road bike path down Gungahlin Drive from the town centre
2. Follow the path down the Barton highway in to Lyneham.
3. Ride on the footpath down Ellenborough Street until you get to the inner north bike path
4. Follow the bike path down through Turner, O’connor etc. towards the ANU
5. The bike path will spit you out at Barry Drive at the city, proceed to wherever you’re going from there.

Once you get into the inner north there’s no real reason you need to stick to the bike paths. I’m on the back streets every day, left and right of Northbourne, and rarely do I have to watch my line due to traffic going both ways, generally on a lot of the streets I’m lucky to even encounter a car.

I will never ever do without my rear view mirror though, it’s as important as the one in my car and makes the commuting much safer all round.

arescarti42 said :

This is how I’d probably do it:

1. Follow the off road bike path down Gungahlin Drive from the town centre
2. Follow the path down the Barton highway in to Lyneham.
3. Ride on the footpath down Ellenborough Street until you get to the inner north bike path
4. Follow the bike path down through Turner, O’connor etc. towards the ANU
5. The bike path will spit you out at Barry Drive at the city, proceed to wherever you’re going from there.

I use this twice a week and sometimes on the weekends with the wife. It’s a good ride to and from the city.

thatsnotme said :

arescarti42’s route looks great to me. Out of interest I used Google Maps to try to figure out how long the commute would be – looks to be around 11km, give or take.

Growling Ferret said :

The Desert of Uphill and Headwind heading towards Palmerston can also be a long way from fun into a strong northwesterly

God damn northwesterly winds… My ride is about 14.5km to Macgregor, and if I ride home and there’s a wind it’s just about ALWAYS a frickin’ northwesterly. What I’d give to live east of the city some days, and have a tail wind to help me home…

Hahahahaaaa, sucks to be a northsider……….I LOVE the norwester on my commute home to the land of milk & honey that is Lanyon………. 😛

thatsnotme said :

arescarti42’s route looks great to me. Out of interest I used Google Maps to try to figure out how long the commute would be – looks to be around 11km, give or take.

Growling Ferret said :

The Desert of Uphill and Headwind heading towards Palmerston can also be a long way from fun into a strong northwesterly

God damn northwesterly winds… My ride is about 14.5km to Macgregor, and if I ride home and there’s a wind it’s just about ALWAYS a frickin’ northwesterly. What I’d give to live east of the city some days, and have a tail wind to help me home…

Its just over 11km from Barry Drive lights to the lights at Palmerston.

If you want to keep track of your improving fitness, use something like Runkeeper or Strava on your smartphone.

arescarti42’s route looks great to me. Out of interest I used Google Maps to try to figure out how long the commute would be – looks to be around 11km, give or take.

Growling Ferret said :

The Desert of Uphill and Headwind heading towards Palmerston can also be a long way from fun into a strong northwesterly

God damn northwesterly winds… My ride is about 14.5km to Macgregor, and if I ride home and there’s a wind it’s just about ALWAYS a frickin’ northwesterly. What I’d give to live east of the city some days, and have a tail wind to help me home…

thanks very much to everyone who replied – much appreciated. will give arescarti’s route a go on a weekend when i’m feeling particularly energetic to see how it goes. if nothing else i’ll have more time for audiobooks and should lose that spare tire around the middle…

Arescarti is spot on.

The only painful bits are the traffic lights to cross Gungahlin Drive can take 3 or 4 minutes to cycle through, and the stop/go nature of the path as it crosses over the roads in Lyneham and O’Connor.

The Desert of Uphill and Headwind heading towards Palmerston can also be a long way from fun into a strong northwesterly

joingler said :

Google maps has a cycling option so that’ll give you some ideas.

Google maps is rubbish for cycling information, you’re much better off looking at the cycling map.

joingler said :

I just followed Gungahlin/Caswell drives down to the bike path that follows Lady Denman.

The OP asked for off-road options. If you’re going to ride on the road why not Flemington and Northbourne?

joingler said :

this may be a quicker option as it is all downhill.

Discounting the ~50m climb between Crace and the bridge over Belconnen Way.

arescarti42 said :

This is how I’d probably do it:

1. Follow the off road bike path down Gungahlin Drive from the town centre
2. Follow the path down the Barton highway in to Lyneham.
3. Ride on the footpath down Ellenborough Street until you get to the inner north bike path
4. Follow the bike path down through Turner, O’connor etc. towards the ANU
5. The bike path will spit you out at Barry Drive at the city, proceed to wherever you’re going from there.

Not really much choice. The only other off-road path out of Gungahlin is along Gundaroo Drive which would require you to ride through Giralang and Kaleen before you’d join up with the same route as given. An alternative to the Sullivans Ck path is Wattle, Forbes and Moore Streets which I find to be less conjested than the cycle path and the car traffic is reasonably low.