Hey there everyone,

Hope all is well with you all, whether your in UK contemplating move to Australia, or a Pom in Aus, but just dropping by to see if anyone has any info on the following.

I'm looking at getting back into cycling when (fingers crossed), the visa is approved. Now I don't care what cycling, XC, Downhill or Road Cycling, so long as it's fast and fun.

Is anyone able to point me in the direction of cycling forums and ecommerce bike shops for when I move.

FWI I'll be moving all being well to Clifton Springs VIC if any cyclists want chat about decent rides. Just got to get Lands End to John O'Groats in before I leave UK!! Haha

Look forward to hearing back from you all

Cheers.

Hi,

The big forum is Rotorburn and there's a few local clubs here and there that might have their own forums. I ride MTB with Lysterfield District Trail Riders, their forum is linked on their website - Google LDTR.

There are tons of shop rides if roadie stuff is more your thing. Not many good websites though, more a case of when you get here hunt out you nearest shops and see what clubs/shop rides they run.

As for e commerce, there's nothing here that can touch wiggle or chain reaction. I, and most of the Aussie riders I know, get their stuff shipped over form one of those two. Quite often they do free shipping to Australia and even when they don't they are still cheaper than locally bought. Not to mention more choice and as daft as it sounds, usually faster delivery than from within Australia!

I've just bought a mountain bike and live semi-rural so ride in the bush and hills near my home

Cycling is massive here and there are a lot of online resource and a shitload of bike stores

Have fun

I started this thread:
http://britishexpats.com/forum/barbi...ke-con-840343/ to show that this is not always the case. Some Giant bikes are cheaper than the UK and even the US - and often by a huge margin. Talking to the guy in the shop where I bought my bike and he said that this applies to some other brands too. Wiggle is great for parts, clothes and accessories though

Sorry, I should have clarified for parts rather than whole bikes, (although I did get my last bike from Wiggle and it was still 25% cheaper than Aus even AFTER I paid freight and customs duty on it).

My last pair of MTB wheels came from Chain Reaction at over 50% reduction on anything anyone locally could get, or even online Aus based stores like-for-like and we're talking an RRP $1500 pair of wheels, and they were delivered within a week.

To be honest, you get fed up of the sob stories from some shops. You have to adapt to survive. My local bike shop in the UK was a small, friendly outfit and always did the best price they could. When online stuff started taking off and they started to lose business they didn't bleat on about it, they started a GOOD online store, (not some crappy holding page and facebook crap a lot of Oz stores have), and they up-scaled their mail order side of things and are doing VERY well. Some Ozzy stores are starting to do this and their prices are coming down but it still bugs me that I can get something delivered from the UK quicker than the next state.

Sorry - I've deleted the rest of my shop bashing rant, there are some GREAT local shops out there ran by fantastic staff, selling all sorts of things. Unfortunately, there's a lot of greedy gougers that for too long have been able to charge whatever they like unquestioned as Australia, has until recently, been very isolated to what goes on in the rest of the world with regard to costs of some items.

Beach road in Melbourne is probably the most popular daily ride. Some people ride from the city all the way to Mordialloc and then turn round, others even continue to Frankston and then turn round.

There's about 650,000,000,000,000 cyclists on Beach Road most weekend mornings so another one won't make a difference.

BB

Edit: sorry now notice you said Clifton Springs not Clifton Hill. I'm sure there's great riding around the Bellarine Peninsula area - its mainly very flat.

BB

The ms for all the info, I'll be sure to check out the forum Rotorburn, sounds promising. Did a bit of cycling in Perth and Fremantle area when I popped over there for a week to catch up with a mate.
I'd heard that Wiggle/Ribble/Chain Reaction were big worldwide.

Another cycling related question, are there any shop owners on here of bike shops? Or anyone know any?? Purely as I'm looking at designed and importing some clothing accessories and was wondering on how the shops work in relation to mark up from wholesale price and if there are any decent trade shows for the cycling industry in Australia?

Many Thanks again for the info