Daylesford riding ?

[Jabba021]

Hi All,

New to the forums and cycling in general - I'm a distance runner returning from an injury and enjoy cross training on the bike. I apologise if this post should be in another section, or if it's already covered - I tried searching the forums but couldn't find exactly the info i am after.

I'm heading up Daylesford way this week with the GF (triathlete, experienced on the road), and was wondering if the 63k "Ride Daylesford" route is accessible for cycling without the road closures that would normally be in place, i assume, for the event?
see:
http://www.ridedaylesford.com.au/63km-ride/
&
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewe ... 201618&z=9

The main road i'm concerned about is the A300/Midland Hwy. While I have done a bit of road cycling now (live near Mt Dandy so often ride 1/20 and surrounds), just concerned about whether:
a - cycling is allowed on this road outside of events
b - it is relatively "safe" to ride on as it looks like quite a small highway and if cars are flying past at 100k/h and don't care much for cyclists, i'm not sure i'd be that comfortable yet. But if there's a lot of cycling there and the cars are kind of used to it, i'd probably feel a bit more comfortable.

Hope this question makes sense, and any other recommendations for some nice rides in the area would be very much appreciated!

Cheers,

Jabba.

[m@]

G'day Jabba, I rode that event back in 2018 with my partner at the time. We ended up behind the time cutoff, being passed by large volumes of traffic once the road was reopened which wasn't pleasant - but that isn't going to be reflective of the usual conditions! Most drivers were pretty good despite some obvious frustration and impatience having been held up by the closure. Probably had more issues with some of the riders doing the longer distance passing us on the final stretch tbh!

I can't comment on the level of cycling and driver behaviour there generally; I was on some of the same roads while doing the Goldfields Track back in 2016 or thereabouts and had no issues with any of the drivers I encountered back then.

There are some other potentially dodgy spots - blind crests and corners on high speed roads - but these can be mitigated by keeping your ears and eyes open and taking action to ensure your safety. If you're not comfortable with that, you might prefer to find alternatives - there was a recent thread asking about road routes in the Daylesford area that might help.

[Jabba021]

Hi m@, thanks for the info! It looks like it would be a really nice place for a ride in general.

I will have another look for that Daylesford thread, sounds good.

Cheers!

[P!N20]

I'm not super familiar with the area, but it looks like a good route to me. As long as you stay off the Calder I reckon it would be reasonably quiet.

What happened to Ride Daylesford? Looks like the last event was in 2018.

[m@]

What happened to Ride Daylesford? Looks like the last event was in 2018.

I'm not really sure... It seemed to be well enough organised in 2018 and as I recall all entries were sold. Maybe it wasn't meeting the organiser's fund-raising targets; it seems that a lot of events have struggled in recent years due to increased costs of police permits, insurance etc...

[antigee]

Only done a couple of rides in the area but enjoyed .... I had this on file for future visits Macedon Ranges cycling club have some routes from and around Kyneton on their website scroll past the MTB and general info and the links appear quite far down ...big thanks for them for posting publically looks like in different times an open invite to join rides
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&sour ... ZNOIEwaDxx