CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Richmond it runs 80 km to Lithgow; allow about 1 h 26 of riding. The stops in between: Kurrajong Heights and Mount Tomah. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 37 km this is Bells Line of Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Richmond is one of the old Macquarie towns, laid out in 1810 on the flat, fertile floodplain of the Hawkesbury River, northwest of Sydney. Governor Lachlan Macquarie picked high ground for five settlements, Windsor, Richmond, Wilberforce, Pitt Town and Castlereagh, to keep farmers safe from the floods that regularly drowned the lowlands. The town still has a village feel, with a green square, a few sandstone buildings and a handful of cafés, and it sits a short distance from the RAAF base that bears its name. With about five and a half thousand people, it has plenty of fuel and food.
Read the complete Richmond New South Wales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Richmond New South Wales is where the day begins. Next is Kurrajong Heights.
The ridge at Kurrajong Heights is where Sydney's flat, hot western suburbs finally give way to the Blue Mountains. The Bells Line of Road climbs steeply out of the Hawkesbury lowlands through orchards and bushland, and by the time you reach the village, around five hundred metres up, the air has cooled and the trees have changed from scrubby gums to taller forest. In the morning the valleys below may be full of fog, with the ridge standing clear above it.
Read the complete Kurrajong Heights write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kurrajong Heights comes up about 17 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mount Tomah.
Mount Tomah is the high point on the Bells Line of Road, at about a thousand metres, and it is capped with basalt, which makes all the difference. While the surrounding Blue Mountains are made of sandstone with thin, poor soil, the volcanic cap here has rich, deep earth that holds water and grows big trees, rhododendrons, camellias and cold-climate plants that would never survive on the coast. It is a green island in a sandy sea, and the temperature here can be ten degrees colder than in Sydney.
Read the complete Mount Tomah write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 43 km into the recorded legs you reach Mount Tomah. Next is Lithgow.
Coal and iron built Lithgow, and the town has never quite pretended otherwise. It lies in a bowl on the western side of the Blue Mountains, where the plateau drops toward the inland plains, and for a century it was New South Wales's industrial heart. The first blast furnace in Australia to make iron from local ore was lit at Eskbank in the 1870s, a small-arms factory opened here in 1912, and coal mines honeycombed the surrounding hills. Today there are about five thousand people in the town proper, a main street with solid brick pubs, and the kind of cafés where nobody minds muddy boots.
Read the complete Lithgow write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lithgow closes the day.
Richmond New South Wales → Kurrajong Heights is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kurrajong Heights → Mount Tomah is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mount Tomah → Lithgow is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.