This Festive Season, off-road bicycling delights await discovery in this green sports lung bordered by the suburbs of Glenhaven, Castle Hill and Showground Road.
First, there is the BMX track, which has been upgraded to international race standards. Lower your saddle and practise bike-handling skills on it anytime there is not an event, using your MTB or a BMX. Then there are all the choice technical single tracks in surrounding forests and parallel to the creeks…
Park at Knightsbridge Shopping Centre. Turn left onto Ridgecrop Drive, right down Linksley and in the dip, turn left onto Timber Grove and look for the trail head on the left near the bridge over the creek. You will love this rock and rolling, scenic ride parallel to the verdant fern-lined Castle Hill Creek. Singletrack opens out onto a firetrail /neglected Hills Council Cyclepath in Fullers’ Road Reserve, hugging the bottom of sheer rocks at the hem of suburbia. The cyclepath then opens out onto a short stint on tar, and you are now riding parallel to Cattai Creek and straight for the Waterworks. Turn left onto the single track at the waterworks fence. The track loosely follows the perimeter of the waterworks. It is very technical, and only elite mountain bikers will be able to ride the whole thing. Keep your weight far back off the saddle if rolling down the rock steps. Turn left over the footbridge to the BMX track. From here, there are plenty of short, winding single track circuits in bushland around most sport fields to explore and call your own. None of them are ever groomed, but surprisingly for Sydney, many of them are actually marked ! They are all rocky, rutted and intersected by tree roots- the most excellent stuff to make mountain bicycling here, amongst the best Hills District currently has to offer.
