CYCLING PERTH

2022 cycling Perth wide is BOOMING as cyclists avoided public transport. Bicycle repairs and bicycle sales from bike shops in Perth have doubled during the Corona virus pandemic. With the coastal plain of Perth being so flat, cycling is an easy, cheap, enjoyable, all of the family recreational activity/thing to do in Perth. For the growing number of commuters in 2022, cycling is a fast, cheap, healthy alternative to traffic gridlock and car parking. Improved fitness is also a benefit of cycling which uses the biggest muscles in the body.

---

PERTH CYCLING VIDEOS

CYCLING PHOTOS PERTH

How to properly adjust bicycle helmet straps.

---

Cycling Perth's Swan River with Jon, my 9yo, inspired me to develop this Perth cycling website.  I grew up bicycling Perth's hill suburb of Darlington. Cycled for transport most days on Aitutaki for a decade but after coming back to Perth, I began bike riding up and down Perth's Sunset Coast because it was less boring than the knee rehabilitation gym after 3 operations.  The best bike thing was getting a bike rack for the back of my car.  We soon figured that bicycling around Perth's rivers and lakes is flat, interesting and easy.  I feel like a tourist in my home city of Perth. With the cold of winter making surfing Perth beaches less attractive, turning to bicycling has led to a discovery of how beautiful Perth waterways are.  Perth Cycling Map 700kb PDF.

Another good cycling thing in Perth is to register your bike's serial number in Crime Stopper's Bikelinc. It's good to help with lost or stolen bicycle recovery.

---

BICYCLES ON TRAINS

Bicycles on TransPerth buses are NOT permitted but are permitted on Perth trains except for peak hour exclusion times.
Trains travelling towards Perth between; 7:00am and 9:00am Monday to Friday.
Trains travelling away from Perth between; 4:30 pm and 6:30 pm Monday to Friday.
More TransPerth information about folding bicycles, unicycles etc. on Perth trains. When I was young, you could hang your bike on big hooks on the outside back of Perth buses. I'm guessing hooks were taken off buses because too many prams were left hanging with babies in!

---

PERTH CYCLING TIPS

1. The biggest cycling tip for Perth cyclists is to buy cheapest used bicycles in Perth from the tip. Council/city recycling centre such as the City of Stirling's Recycling Centre, Balcatta, sell lots of cheap bicycles.
2. Join a Perth cycling Facebook group.
3. Listen to the ABC cycling podcast.

---

CYCLING TOURS OF PERTH

Bicycling Perth CBD Swan River

We started bicycling near the Narrows Bridge, along the Esplanade of Perth's CBD, past the Causeway bridges, Windan Bridge, past Burswood, and along the South Perth foreshore.

A shortcut is cycling over the Matagarup Bridge which opened in 2018. It makes cycling to the new Perth Stadium easy.

---

Bicycling Perth - Fremantle - Perth

After surfing at Scarborough Beach this morning we ate a packed lunch on the north bank of Swan River at Claremont.

Most of Perth's bicycling along rivers is flat though this view at Mossman only a few kilometres from the Indian Ocean is worth bicycling up.

Cycling Fremantle streets was a very interesting cycling tour in this historic port city. More of our Fremantle cycling trip later. Perth bicycle routes away from busy streets from Fremantle to Perth were well sign posted. Cycling around Perth lakes such as Lake Joondalup and Herdsman Lake are flat and environmentally interesting. We consulted the Map of Perth, planned our trip with the regular strong sea breeze in mind. The boy with his 10 speed racing bike flew with the wind along the Melville foreshore south of Perth.

After bicycling over the Narrows Bridge we turned west into the sea breeze for our last leg.

---

Bicycling Perth's Herdsman's Lake and Lake Monger: If you're looking for a short bicycle riding tour in Perth, Lake Monger 5km north west of the Perth CBD is flat and takes about 15 minutes cycling.

Biking lake Monger in Autumn
 
Photo of Lake Monger I took in 1971.

If you add nearby Herdsman's Lake to your cycling tour, add 40min.

---

Cycling Perth's Sunset Coast

Above photos on the Sunset Coast cycle path.

For us, living at the means frequent surfing and Perth cycling up the Sunset Coast to Hillary's Boat Harbour and south to Perth's City Beach.  Like most of Perth's bicycle paths, it is dual access but bicycle accidents do happen so watch out for children and dogs. Dogs (gods spelt backwards): please keep your careless owners a short leash.

---

Off Road Cycling Near Perth

Munda Biddi Trail, nature based. The longest off road cycling track from Perth to Nannup in the forests of south Western Australia

Not only is Perth bicycling fun and healthy but an environment and fuel and saver. Drinking water fountains are available while bicycling around Perth rivers but bring money just in case.  I find cycling through the much improved Perth bicycling paths is delivering empowerment to Jon and bringing back fond memories of cycling all over Perth in my youthful days. Cycling is also providing early practical road rules Perth training for cotton wool kids.

Cycling facts

• 108,799,200. bikes are made each year.  There are two-and-a-half times more bikes produced annually than cars. 87 per cent of global bicycle production is from China, India, the European Union, Taiwan, and Japan. 60 per cent of the world’s bikes are made in China but in Beijing, only 20 per cent of commuters rode bikes in 2002, compared to 60 per cent in 1998.

• the number of bicycles sold in Perth Australia has outstripped the number of cars sold for nine consecutive years.

• according to the Australian Bicycle Council, the cost of buying and maintaining a bike is about one per cent of the cost of buying and maintaining a car.

• There is an estimated billion bicycles in the world, with nearly half of them in China.

• the Canadian Automobile Association calculated the annual cost of running a car minus the cost of a bicycle and estimated that if just half of the people who bought a bicycle within a year were able to stop using their car they’d have an additional $5,000-$6,000 of disposable income. (Australian Bicycle Council) say cycling just 10 kilometres each way to work instead of driving saves about $770 in transport costs and 1.3 tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year. (Australian Bicycle Council).  Cycling in Perth not only saves Perthites money and air quality but also keeps you fit and healthy.

Cycling groups and cycling clubs in Perth can contact me for a free link from this cycling webpage to their cycling in Perth website.

---

DUAL CYCLE PATH

I was cycling north along the shared pedestrian/cycle path at a safe speed with my kids following when I passed to the left (west) of a suit wearing pedestrian on the right (east) side of the path, near Mettams Pool.
When we got to the North Beach shopping centre my son was upset because as he told me the suited pedestrian:

1. Moved to the west lane,
2. impeded his progress with an outstretched arm and
3. shouted to slow down.

I don't have an issue with pedestrians saying things if they think cyclists are going to fast.
The WA traffic act of 1974 states: Obstruction of vehicles and pedestrians:
(1) A person shall not, with intent to hinder or obstruct the passage of any vehicle or vehicles on a carriageway.

I was concerned about the safety of my children cycling to school. I believe that no one should deliberately move in front of an oncoming vehicle, be it a bicycle or whatever.
I also have experienced bad pedestrian behaviour since the City of Stirling (CoS) put up signs stating cyclists need to give way to pedestrians. A couple of months ago a pedestrian moved to the centre of the path and put their arm up when I was cycling past in the opposite direction, at a safe speed. What pisses me off is the one-sided approach by CoS. If CoS wants to erect signs motivating pedestrian aggression, how about signs telling pedestrians to behave like:

1. Keep left dickheads. Can't you read the keep left signs under your feet on the path? The worst are path hogging headphone wearers who can't hear warning sounds.
2. Come on ladies, don't push your prams three abreast or your breasts might have an accident when a bike crashes into them.
3. How about signs with big fonts warning people walking up from Mettams Pool to stop dreaming when they cross over the path or alter the path to make them zig zag so they'll think about why they have to zig zag and look out for cyclists.
4. Keep your crappy, dangerous dogs on a SHORT leash, especially when you let them engage with other excited arse sniffers, completely, suddenly, dangerously blocking the path of cyclists/pedestrians.

---

Cycling Perth's Lake Joondalup

Wonderful, flat 12km bicycling in Perth's Sunset Coast.