Melbourne: Best route east out of city

Walrus said:

Melbourne CBD bike commuters could you help?

I've started riding in on a road bike. Yesterday I found the traffic a nightmare getting out of the city. I know that it's never going to be empty roads, but there has to be a better way than along Flinders st and Alexandra Parade onto Bridge road. I was ducking and weaving all over the place.

I'm heading to High st Kew from cnr Collins/Elizabeth. Any suggestions of a route that might allow wider roads and less white knuckle riding? Along the river? Victoria parade and onto Studley Park road?

your definitely 'going my way' 😄

I start from lt. collins and russell. I take collins st, macarthur, and right into albert st (there's a bike/footpath on the south side of the road alongside fitzroy gardens), then a little of clarendon, right into hotham to Punt Rd (watch the roundabouts!), then Highett St all the way to Burnley St (although you can avoid Burnley by taking Gardner), then down and left into Bridge Rd, across the bridge and past the 'tram stop of death' (although you can take the footpath there legally), and up church st to kew....

I've found it ok so far. Not too frightening, but fairly direct too... Be happy to ride it with you one day if that helps....

Eddie(my white knuckles are purely a pigmentation problem)c

eddiec said:

your definitely 'going my way' 😄

I start from lt. collins and russell. I take collins st, macarthur, and right into albert st (there's a bike/footpath on the south side of the road alongside fitzroy gardens), then a little of clarendon, right into hotham to Punt Rd (watch the roundabouts!), then Highett St all the way to Burnley St (although you can avoid Burnley by taking Gardner), then down and left into Bridge Rd, across the bridge and past the 'tram stop of death' (although you can take the footpath there legally), and up church st to kew....

I've found it ok so far. Not too frightening, but fairly direct too... Be happy to ride it with you one day if that helps....

Eddie(my white knuckles are purely a pigmentation problem)c

Thanks, I'll try it out tonight.

I was commuting from Collins/William up till a couple of weeks ago. In
the last couple of months I found a new route.

Crossed back over the river to Southgate and followed the bike trail to
Swan St. Nice and quiet excpt getting through the Southgate pedestrians
(but still better than Collins ST traffic). Also handy for dropping in
at Peter Moore.

Swan St to Coppin St. Coppin St rocks as it is flat, never seems to get
much wind, and has bike lane all the way to Bridge Rd.

Bridge Rd over the Yarra and then left up to Kew.

This was 2km longer than my old direct route but 5-10 mins faster, and
so much more relaxing than going through the guts of the CBD.

DaveB

Walrus said:

Melbourne CBD bike commuters could you help?

snipparge...

my 5cents worth

Collins to Swanston. right and down to FedSquare. Turn left onto North side of river and thru Birrarung Mar and along North side of river (good alt for you DaveB). Then perhaps North at mary Street (doubles back after last pontoon. opposite herron Island) and up to Swan, Burnely and thru the Barkers Rd cutting (footpath if you dont like the road, altho cars are usually travelling near you rspeed or stationery anyway so its up the middle of the 2 lanes for me. Tuck left into Tram carpark and thru gap in brickwall to nice quiet Bowen St, right into Miller and onto Church up to Kew Junction.
Or jsut replace those last few by following tramline along barkers up to Junction.

My semi-regular is Bourke (very quiet), Spring/Nicholson, hookturn into Albert St (nice and wide. pretty much left lane to yourself). All way down to Punt, Elizabeth.
Option one.left into Lennox, Elizabeth, Baker and lef tinto Johnson (not the major one) and right at lights (easy turn) into Victoria St
Option 2 Elizabeth and left into Lennox (use short section of footpath is 1-way rd for 20m!). Cross Victoria St and go north along Nicholson St (lane4you). Hookturn into Gipps St, cross "cfsmtb's bridge" 😄, and up to Boulevard. either left for a bit of training round Boulevard to TODAY'S NEW LANES ALONG CHANDLER HWY 😄😄😄😄 and up to Earl St/Anniversary trail to get you near your desitnation, OR right along boulevard and up to Walmer and either take Studley Park Rd to junction OR straight ahead and thru to Stephenson's St

You'll notice from all this I have a myriad of routes. Its to see different things, keep it fresh and for different times of evening. Routes INTO the CBD are very different.

checkout this BBUG map. Its not quite 'live' yet but your feedback (and eddiec and anyone else's) would help it along.
Its aimed at the first time CBD-bound commuter from Boroondara.
Keep in mind its for the firs ttimer and and a few of us will be offering an optional 'escort' service to help turn cagers into riders 😄

home.vicnet.net.aucommuter 2.pdfOpen ↗

eddiec said:

your definitely 'going my way' 😄

I start from lt. collins and russell. I take collins st, macarthur, and right into albert st (there's a bike/footpath on the south side of the road alongside fitzroy gardens), then a little of clarendon, right into hotham to Punt Rd (watch the roundabouts!), then Highett St all the way to Burnley St (although you can avoid Burnley by taking Gardner), then down and left into Bridge Rd, across the bridge and past the 'tram stop of death' (although you can take the footpath there legally), and up church st to kew....

I've found it ok so far. Not too frightening, but fairly direct too... Be happy to ride it with you one day if that helps....

Eddie(my white knuckles are purely a pigmentation problem)c

Hey Ed. can you take me on your route?
might add it to the Boroondara stuff if it suits...

and yeah, Walrus, if you want guidance Im more than happy to ride with you too. Learning other people's routes is cool (That's how i learnt the VicPark underpass off Lulie St, Abbotsford. (refer pdf map)

flyingdutch said:

Hey Ed. can you take me on your route?
might add it to the Boroondara stuff if it suits...

and yeah, Walrus, if you want guidance Im more than happy to ride with you too. Learning other people's routes is cool (That's how i learnt the VicPark underpass off Lulie St, Abbotsford. (refer pdf map)

happy to... as long as you can ride slow 😉 The route in and out are ever so slightly different, but doesn't matter that much (ie. route in goes around the back of kew cemetery, route out just blats down the hill along high st...)

give me some possible days for either morning or evening runs and we'll line one up... or just meet me tomorrow morning (thinking of what's not too far out of your way) at the intersection of balwyn and gordon sts at 8am...

Eddie(damn - now i'll be forced to act macho and ride fast)c

eddiec said:

happy to... as long as you can ride slow 😉 The route in and out are ever so slightly different, but doesn't matter that much (ie. route in goes around the back of kew cemetery, route out just blats down the hill along high st...)

give me some possible days for either morning or evening runs and we'll line one up... or just meet me tomorrow morning (thinking of what's not too far out of your way) at the intersection of balwyn and gordon sts at 8am...

Eddie(damn - now i'll be forced to act macho and ride fast)c

see you there. dont worry. feeling vewy sluggish this morning 🙁

flyingdutch said:

my 5cents worth

Collins to Swanston. right and down to FedSquare. Turn left onto North side of river and thru Birrarung Mar and along North side of river (good alt for you DaveB). Then perhaps North at mary Street (doubles back after last pontoon. opposite herron Island) and up to Swan, Burnely and thru the Barkers Rd cutting (footpath if you dont like the road, altho cars are usually travelling near you rspeed or stationery anyway so its up the middle of the 2 lanes for me. Tuck left into Tram carpark and thru gap in brickwall to nice quiet Bowen St, right into Miller and onto Church up to Kew Junction.
Or jsut replace those last few by following tramline along barkers up to Junction.

My semi-regular is Bourke (very quiet), Spring/Nicholson, hookturn into Albert St (nice and wide. pretty much left lane to yourself). All way down to Punt, Elizabeth.
Option one.left into Lennox, Elizabeth, Baker and lef tinto Johnson (not the major one) and right at lights (easy turn) into Victoria St
Option 2 Elizabeth and left into Lennox (use short section of footpath is 1-way rd for 20m!). Cross Victoria St and go north along Nicholson St (lane4you). Hookturn into Gipps St, cross "cfsmtb's bridge" 😄, and up to Boulevard. either left for a bit of training round Boulevard to TODAY'S NEW LANES ALONG CHANDLER HWY 😄😄😄😄 and up to Earl St/Anniversary trail to get you near your desitnation, OR right along boulevard and up to Walmer and either take Studley Park Rd to junction OR straight ahead and thru to Stephenson's St

You'll notice from all this I have a myriad of routes. Its to see different things, keep it fresh and for different times of evening. Routes INTO the CBD are very different.

checkout this BBUG map. Its not quite 'live' yet but your feedback (and eddiec and anyone else's) would help it along.
Its aimed at the first time CBD-bound commuter from Boroondara.
Keep in mind its for the firs ttimer and and a few of us will be offering an optional 'escort' service to help turn cagers into riders 😄

home.vicnet.net.aucommuter 2.pdfOpen ↗

I like Option 2, might give that go. I prefer a spin on the Boulevard before retiring for the evening. How good are those news lanes on the Chandler!

Walrus said:

I like Option 2, might give that go. I prefer a spin on the Boulevard before retiring for the evening. How good are those news lanes on the Chandler!

compliments Boroondara BUG 😄 😄 😄

"Join us Luke! Feeeeel the power of the (not-so) dark side"

Thanks for the ride but I dont like your route eddie!

Its too darned wet 🙄

my routes are MUCH drier

F"Dry-you-damn-clothes-for-the-return-journey"Dutch

flyingdutch said:

Collins to Swanston. right and down to FedSquare. Turn left onto North
side of river and thru Birrarung Mar and along North side of river
(good alt for you DaveB).

Tried it once but was after lots of rain and those sandy sections had
some serious chasms to cross due to erosion. Well and truly put me off
that side (and the fact that I'm now based on the southside anyway).

Then perhaps North at mary Street (doubles

Quoted message said:

back after last pontoon. opposite herron Island) and up to Swan,
Burnely and thru the Barkers Rd cutting (footpath if you dont like the

Avoiding the cutting of death was why I switched to Bridge Rd across the
Yarra rather than Victoria/Barkers. Also there's a lot more room in peak
hr coming home on Bridge Rd from Coppin to the bridge.

DaveB

flyingdutch said:

Thanks for the ride but I dont like your route eddie!

Its too darned wet 🙄

my routes are MUCH drier

F"Dry-you-damn-clothes-for-the-return-journey"Dutch

Try it when you're in the spray of some shmuck on a fixie who forgot his mudguards... oh wait... 😉

Enjoyed the company - something I don't get much of on that route...

I'm all for developing some little a.b. decals to whack on our seatposts, given the fact that many of us have probably ridden past each other from time to time and never known it... Secret handshake perhaps?

Eddie(I showered in my socks and they came out drier)c

quote='DaveB'flyingdutch said:

Collins to Swanston. right and down to FedSquare. Turn left onto North
side of river and thru Birrarung Mar and along North side of river
(good alt for you DaveB).

Tried it once but was after lots of rain and those sandy sections had
some serious chasms to cross due to erosion. Well and truly put me off
that side (and the fact that I'm now based on the southside anyway).
DaveB[/QUOTE]

fair nuff, but you can avoid all the sand by just stickin to the path (that goes to left of sand, under bells).

DaveB said:

Avoiding the cutting of death was why I switched to Bridge Rd across the
Yarra rather than Victoria/Barkers. Also there's a lot more room in peak
hr coming home on Bridge Rd from Coppin to the bridge.
DaveB

Yes, cutting of death is a bugger. trying to get Yarra/Boroondara to make that footpath from western side of bridge to east side of cutting a shared path but this'll take time.
That tram stop at corner of bridge/church is unbelievably stupidly designed.
ideally the footpath/road would be moved to allow decent area for cars and EBL for bikes and footpath for ped's.
Going left after bridge is very quiet, if not also very hilly. think of it as BR-training 😄

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 at 23:35 GMT, eddiec (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Eddie(I showered in my socks and they came out drier)c

The new radar colour scheme sure is pretty right about now.

I still haven't gotten out of bed, and now I can't see the keyboard
any more - it appears to be getting darker out there....

--
TimC -- http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/staff/tconnors/
C Code.
C Code Run.
Run, Code, RUN!
PLEASE!!!! --unknown

flyingdutch said:

Hookturn into Gipps St, cross "cfsmtb's bridge" 😄, and up to Boulevard. either left for a bit of training round Boulevard to TODAY'S NEW LANES ALONG CHANDLER HWY 😄😄😄😄 and up to Earl St/Anniversary trail to get you near your desitnation, OR right along boulevard and up to Walmer and either take Studley Park Rd to junction OR straight ahead and thru to Stephenson's St

You'll notice from all this I have a myriad of routes. Its to see different things, keep it fresh and for different times of evening. Routes INTO the CBD are very different.

*chuckle* just read this, if I had my way it would be all *very* different.
On the BV Bicycle Path day last month YarraBUG had a stall down at this bridge/steps, later in the arvo a couple of us ended up playing billygoat gruff with a moto guy who thought it a swell idea to zip across the bridge to the Boroondara side, regardless of all the peds & cyclists also on the bridge. Funny thing is, he flattened the battery while *discussing* the issue, and had to get a push start from us. *another chuckle*

Wider bridge, remove the barriers, signage denoting shared ped/bicycle use, non skid surface, adequately designed ramps up to Gipps Street, bikepath extension around to Flockhart Reserve with riverside licensed bar in the old CUB cellars..... 😉