ah oops, sorry about that Dalai

Advice? Try Cape Hawke near Forster, about 250 k's north of Sydney. All the pain and suffering of a real climb compacted into 500 meters of pure anaerobic pleasure.

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Chains to the right!

Sorry to warm up this topic again but my departure is coming...
I'm sure now that I'm not going to take my own bike with me , so I'd like options there.

The best thing would be to rent a race bike at my stops. My trip will start in Sydney and lead me along the coast to Cairns. Stops a likely in Newcaslte, Port Marquarie, Brisbane and so on.



Who knows bike shops along my way (like Skillgannon) which could rent road bikes

Take your own.

To rent will be near impossible at most places, esp to find one that fits exactly and has all the things like saddle, bar shape, seat set back to your preference.

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Success is how far you you bounce back up after being knocked down

Sorry, I don't actually live arround that area - I went up there with my bike last year, and there was one bike shop that rented out low level MTB's (nice owner, but I wouldn't go there even if you were desperate, not worth the time, most of them were sand beaters) and one place that hired out decently specced Orca's from memory. I'll try looking it up when I get home (uni at the moment) but I'm not sure if I'll be able to find it again.

If I was you though, I'd probably just take your bike with you. I didn't pay any excess luggage fees (light packing though, and the rest of my family didnt take much either - we were mooching off people for a while anyway), shuttle busses were fine with it as long as we gave some forwarning, and there were no issues with the airportrs, even though I used a cardboard box. Admittedly though, one time the box was taken off the plane the wrong way up, and fairlyh beaten up in a few places, but it survived fairly well, and by packing the box with towels and bubble wrap, there wasn't any damage. We got paid to relocate a car once as well, and the bike + box fit in the small car.

Your biggest problem will be returning the bike (if you chose to hire one), as there are no real 'chain' bicycle shops in Australia, and none of them rent out gear.

Edit: Have been searching - if you go all the way up to Noosa or Maroochydoor, Noosa bike hire has Trek 1400 9spd 105 bikes.

Edit 2: Sydney bike hire - http://www.cyclehire.com.au/hire.bicycles.html

Edit 3: There is some bike hire in Pt Macquarie, not sure about what type of bieks they have, but the Pt Macquarie visitors centre may be able to help you out - (02) 6581 8000.

Right, thats enough for me, time for a nap before my lab. Hope that helped.