Moving to Townsville, need advice.

santacruzkid

Likes Dirt
Townsville has plenty to offer. The summer does get hot but as the days are so long you can head out for a ride at 5pm and still have light at 7:30. That’s a full 2 hours you can ride when the weather is allot cooler. As for water sports plenty of things to do. There’s a big river running through the middle of the city which people go skiing/wakeboarding. I’m sure there will be guys willing to let you tag along with them.

As for Winter. The only thing you will probably do is turn the fan down from full noise to half speed. Very nice weather during winter.

The Rockwheelers MTB club is a very well organised club always getting involved in different things. They have a full DH and XC series each year along with big long XC events (Paluma Push, HotRock 8hr and a night event later on in the year. That’s not including all the social events the club run throughout the year. Check them out www.rockwheelers.com.au

I’m sure you will enjoy the riding scene when you get over here.
 

outtacontrol

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Ahh. Basically no rocks around here so I'm guessing I'll have to get used to them.

And yeah I might go 160 rather than 150 as I do prefer the downhill more than the ups haha.
You are in for a sharp learning curve. Our trails are very rocky, and not nice smooth ones, sharp, angry tyre shredding ones that eat non UST tyres for breakfast :)
These rocks make for nice and techy trails, but usually a high price for failure. Our main trailhead is only a couple of Kms from the hospital, which is a good thing :)

Will still be nice and cool when you get here..
 

1307

Likes Bikes
You are in for a sharp learning curve. Our trails are very rocky, and not nice smooth ones, sharp, angry tyre shredding ones that eat non UST tyres for breakfast :)
These rocks make for nice and techy trails, but usually a high price for failure. Our main trailhead is only a couple of Kms from the hospital, which is a good thing :)

Will still be nice and cool when you get here..
Ahhh I'm starting to hate rocks more and more haha. The only time I've ever ridden sharp technical rocks were at Hamner Springs and I was on a Surly Moonlander with 4.7 inch wide tires, I tried monster trucking over everything but it barely worked haha.
 

casnell

Likes Bikes and Dirt
So I'm coming up for the long weekend with a HT XC 100mm, waste of time except Pallarena ( or however you spell it..)??
 

outtacontrol

Likes Bikes and Dirt
So I'm coming up for the long weekend with a HT XC 100mm, waste of time except Pallarena ( or however you spell it..)??
All our trails are rocky, due to the nature of the terrain. Palleranda (Under the Radar) is a new trail, so not as rocky yet as some of the more established trails at Douglas.

Yes, your hardtail will be fine to ride the trails, you just have to be aware that it may not be the same experience you would have riding through pine forest based trails. There are some trails that have big technical features that your bike would not be the most suitable for, but the majority of the trails will just have a rocky tread that can be ridden by any bike.

It's just that some make it easier to have more fun :)
 

Mun

Squid
Hi,

I would suggest a long travel 29ner, 150-160mm 26 inch trail bike (something not too slack that you can pedal uphill, or if your up with the times go with a 650b 150ish bike (probably the best of both.) Also i would go at least a 34mm stanchion fork to deal with the endless rock gardens.
 

outtacontrol

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Hi,

I would suggest a long travel 29ner, 150-160mm 26 inch trail bike (something not too slack that you can pedal uphill, or if your up with the times go with a 650b 150ish bike (probably the best of both.) Also i would go at least a 34mm stanchion fork to deal with the endless rock gardens.
All good advice. Like I have said before, the trails can be ridden on anything, but these styles mentioned are probably the most appropriate. We had a gravity enduro last year with 2 runs. The fastest time on the more pedally course was on a carbon hardtail.
 

1307

Likes Bikes
Hi,

I would suggest a long travel 29ner, 150-160mm 26 inch trail bike (something not too slack that you can pedal uphill, or if your up with the times go with a 650b 150ish bike (probably the best of both.) Also i would go at least a 34mm stanchion fork to deal with the endless rock gardens.
Yeah I've settled on buying a 160mm Enduro bike, I'll probably buy it when I get over as I need to find out how much money I'll have left over after buying a decent car in Townsville (Australia is a freaking rip-off for buying cars haha).
 

outtacontrol

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Yeah I've settled on buying a 160mm Enduro bike, I'll probably buy it when I get over as I need to find out how much money I'll have left over after buying a decent car in Townsville (Australia is a freaking rip-off for buying cars haha).

Make sure you look up Matt at Crank'd Cycles. He is the only shop to check out these types of bikes. Rocky Mountain Slayers or Transition Coverts. Look him up on Facebook..
 

Mun

Squid
I second that, I find that Matt's shop is the best in Townsville, he looks after his customers, actually carry's MTB stock and has sharp pricing on his gear.
 

1307

Likes Bikes
Doubt there are any interested parties but an update anyway.

There's been a whole lot gone on in the last two weeks. I was going to be staying here and boarding, but then after a long think about it, my justification for thinking of staying was purely because of friends here. I have to take a step back and look at what will be best for me in the long term.
My older brother has offered for me to stay with him at his House in Sydney, he lives around Manly in his own house so it'd be no problem for me to stay with him. I'll be going over in just over 10 days most likely.

I'm going to have to investigate how the entire NSW education system works, and whether or not I'd be best to go to TAFE (?) or attempt to join into the school curriculum there. A rough outline of how all the HSC, TAFE and all that works would be awesome though. Any personal experiences you guys might have with the system would be great aswell.
 

Xavo.au

Likes Bikes and Dirt
What grade are you/would you be joining now?

I've only ever been through QLD's system but I reckon it was pretty straightforward. You do OP (Overall Position) subjects, the marks you get in them go towards your OP - the higher the marks = the lower the OP number. OP1 is the best, OP25 is the worst. You sit the QCS (Queensland Core Skills) Test which also goes towards your OP.

At the end of the year, you get an OP between 1 and 25. Entry to University is based on your OP, eg. when I enrolled in Uni the OP cutoff for Science was 10.

That's the QLD way. You can get your OP converted to whatever the other states use as well (and vice versa).

TAFE was for people that didn't want to go to Uni, and my school integrated that into some subjects (the non OP subjects) as well as 1 day per week, those people would go to the actual TAFE and do w/e they were interested in.
That worked well I reckon, pretty sure everyone that went to TAFE ended up with an apprenticeship or at least a job somewhere.
 

1307

Likes Bikes
I'm in year 12 at school currently, so I have this year and next year remaining if I were to stay at school here.
I've been through school pretty easy this whole time, Accounting and Economics have been a breeze for me and I'm wanting to go into some form of accounting at uni. But to do that I'm assuming I'd need some form of university entrance certificate, I thought TAFE would be like over here where you can get your university entrance and school certificate through a polytechnic, but if I have to go to school in Aus to get one rather than just TAFE that seems like my best option. I really need to investigate allot into it before I move.

If my sentences aren't making sense it's because I've been up for about two days haha.

Thanks for the help though mate!
 

redbruce

Eats Squid
Hey all, I'm moving to Townsville from the West Island in late July and I'm looking at getting some knowledge from some locals (or anyone who knows much about the area really) about the mountain biking there.
The west island? There is more than north and south in NZ?
 
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