The Second Edition of the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail

The Brisbane Valley Rail Trail (BVRT) has become an annual gravel ride we look forward to doing each year. Our wonderful friend Greg has brought a group of us together each year (since the inaugural 2021 event…) and has been the leader in organising everything. Many of us used to work together, some of us are neighbours, friends of friends and it’s just so great to see everyone get together for the ride. This year I believe there were about 15-18 of us that geared up for the ride. Which is awesome when you’re doing it as a group this big. The banter, the vibes and the energy during the ride and at dinner is always fun.

A bit of a background on the BVRT - as of this blog’s publishing date, it’s Australia’s longest rail trial. At around 161km long, traversing the old inland rail line through the valley’s of the western South East Queensland. It is an awesome community driven and managed trail which winds it’s way through various country towns. The trail has been upgraded over the last few years we’ve done it and can be ridden by almost anyone on a variety of bikes. We’ve cycled past people and families on mountain bikes, gravel bikes, tandem bikes, electric bikes and some nutbags on road bikes. Depending what you’re in the mood for, but accommodation options range from free camps to private camps behind pubs or even a cosy bed in a pub or motel. Best times of the year to do the ride would be from Spring to Autumn, but the dead of winter can get very cold. So if you are going from around mid June to end of August, pack warm! Summer is just too hot, we would not recommend. Getting to the trail heads can either be done by your own vehicle, train to the southern end and then a shuttle bus can pick you and your bike up at any point along the trail. All in all a great experience all round.

Now why I decided I wanted to participate in something like this. I’ve always been a quite active person, I really enjoy the outdoors, love playing sports and like to push myself to try new things. I’ve always craved adventure and at the start of 2021 I decided that was the year to really start living the adventurous life. So when I heard a group of people from work were putting it out to everyone in the office that they were going to bike ride the BVRT, I decided to put my name forward. What was hiliarious was that when I decided to sign up last year, I had not ridden a bike since an extremely hungover me decided to go for a bike ride with some friends on a Contiki tour in Switzerland 5 years ago! Before that I was about 7 years old on my bright pink bike with a floral basket and long sparkly streamers flowing from the handle bars. Nevertheless, last year was extremely challenging for me but an epic time and immediately signed up to the following year’s version.

So this time last year I didn’t really know what to expect of the trail ride. My dad was awesome and managed to help me find a second hand mountain bike a few weeks out from the ride. I didn’t have a lot of time to familiarise myself with this bike. I found It was quite heavy, excellent tyres, overall a great bike I just had a lot more practice a head of me with learning when to change gears. Only having done a few small 20 - 30km rides, I hadn’t done a lot of preparation. I was very out of my comfort zone and had been quite nervous. However this year I rode my very own brand spanking new gravel bike! The BVRT was going to be her first off road trail too! Not to say there was anything wrong with the mountain bike, but having done quite a few kilometres on my own bike over the past year, definitely made a big difference in my performance and my confidence on the trail.

This year on my bike I have a top tub bag which included some very important essentials. I also bought myself a water bladder which I carried on my back. I found this to be a lot easier to sip on water throughout the ride. However if you are someone who has never done a ride with any kind of weight on your back, I would definitely recommend doing a few smaller ones first before jumping straight in and riding 60km with something on your back….. speaking from experience. I had never done a ride with carrying something on my back and although the water bladder was only 3L, that small amount of weight had my back aching buy the end of the day.

Here is a list of items I would recommend having with on you on the ride.

Snacks (muesli bar, lollies, trail mix)
Sun Screen
Lip balm
Tissues (especially in winter - runny noses are the worst when trying to ride)
Water
Cycling gloves - if you can bring a thicker pair for the morning I would highly recommend as my hands were burning in the morning because of how cold they were!

Gordon carried the rest of our gear on his bike. He’s getting quite keen on doing some longer distance and more remote bikepacking type adventures so he has gone and invested in some actual bike bags, over just carrying a backpack. On his bike he brought, a frame bag and a saddle bag. I think the frame bag was about 3-5L and the saddle bag was about 15L from memory. Not a heap of space but enough to carry our clothes, toiletries, spare equipment and light tech gear (I’m pretty sure Gordon will be doing a blog on his bikepacking setup soon so watch this space!).

So starting with Day 1:

From where we are living up the Sunshine Coast, the meeting point and pick up point in Fernvale, which is a 2 hour drive away. The plan was to meet everyone at 6:30am for a 7:00am departure on the shuttle bus. Rather than get up at 4am, we decided to head into Brisbane and over night with Gordon’s Dad, who lives 45 minutes away from where we were meeting.

Everyone met at Fernvale and we got on a shuttle bus that dropped us off at Yarraman. The bus ride there gave everyone a great chance to catch up. You could really feel the excitement and anticipation in the air. Arriving at the starting point, we all took a group photo, started our watches (if your anything like Gordon and I, we love the track all of our workout and adventures) and started day 1 of the ride. The first few kilometres of the track was a lot of fun, it was just as we all remembered it. There had been a lot of rain the two weeks prior to this week end, to the point we almost had to reschedule. Our bikes got quite muddy, a few of us who took a few of the muddy puddles a bit fast has mud stripes up our backs and almost everyone had mud up their legs. A few of the creek crossing had been cleaned up though and had concrete paths put down. The first leg of our ride was roughly 30-35km where we stopped in Blackbutt and had a water and snack break. We took some more photos and planned to ride the next 15-20km to Lindville Hotel where would stop for lunch.

The Linville Hotel is a really great pub and would highly recommend calling in here if you ever do the tail or a driving by. It’s a really great vibe, has heaps of seating area, live music and really good food! We all chowed down on our meals, I ordered the Chicken Burger (can confirm it was delicious!) and rested up before the second half of day 1. Having had a really good feed and a rest it was a little hard to get back on the bike, all I wanted to do was have a nap in the sun! I think a lot of us felt that way but we pushed on as we knew once we got back on the bike we’d be motivated again, keen to make it to Toogoolawah.

We rode about 20km’s before stopping for a small break. There were a few hills this second half of the ride. My back was definitely starting to ache from the water bladder at this point. Everyone was starting to getting a bit tired, we were all quite muddy and keen to rest up and have a shower. As we pushed on the last 15-20lm into town the temperature began to drop. The sun began to set which was extremely pretty, and as we crossed through the last few farm lands, we were greeted by all sorts of farm life, especially the cows. There were multiple times where we had to stop and wait for them to move out of the way and had one cow in particular that wanted to come with us. There was also an air show on that week end so we got to see a few planes fly over and people parachuting overhead. This was really nice as our surroundings took our minds of how tired we were as this last stretch just seemed to feel like it went forever.

We still arrived a lot early into Toogoolawah this year than last year, the sun was still setting. Everyone’s energy picked up once we made to the hotel, so happy we had completed day 1. We gave our shoes and bikes a quick hose before having a much need shower and then we all met downstairs that evening for a couple of drinks and a well earned feed. It was nice for everyone to reflect on the days events and wind down after a big day of riding. The Toogoolawah hotel was great as always, the meals were delicious and the portion sizes were huge! I think everyone was in a food coma by the end of the evening and it didn’t take long before we all called it a night and went to bed.

Day 2:

Waking up that morning, my body was very sore! I just remember thinking ‘how I am I going to manage sitting back on this bike….’ The Temperature was down to 0 degrees and before my morning coffee I was on struggle street. The Toogoolawah Hotel offered a continental breakfast, but Gordon and I opted to wait as we knew we would be stopping pretty early in the ride for a coffee and we decided we would eat there. We headed off about 7:30am and cycled about 25km to a cafe and bakery in Esk. The first few kilometres were tough! it was so cold that my hand were burning! My toes were numb and sitting back in the seat was so painful. This part was definitely a challenge mentally and physically. What kept us all going was the urge to get warm and get to that coffee shop! Although this part was tough the scenery was beautiful! We rode through the mist and the morning sun was hitting all of the water droplets making everything appear as though it was sparkling. It just put the biggest smile on my face and I quickly forgot about my frozen fingers and sore butt and just enjoyed the ride.

After leaving the coffee shop in Esk, we rode mostly down hill for about 25km’s. This part of the ride was quite cruisy. A few more water crossings and the day started to get a lot warmer. This part of the ride you knew you really didn’t have that much further to go. Again those who were quicker and eager to push on did, and we later met up in Coominya where we had our last snack (hot chipps, with extra salt - oh so good!) and water break before the last stretch of the ride to Fernvale.

My body was back to aching and I was pretty tired by this point. I was really lucky to have Gordon ride with me into town, and I think having such good weather and it being a beautiful day made it a really enjoyable ride. We took the last 15km’s quite easy just enjoying the ride at a nice leisurely pace. Finishing the ride not long after the others about 1:00pm. It felt really rewarding, and it was really nice to see everyone at the end, pack up and say goodbyes until the following year.

Reflecting on the ride I definitely struggled the last 10 kilometres but I always wonder how much further I could push myself. How many more kilometres do I think I could do before really calling it quits. I’ve always like pushing myself when it comes to endurance like exercising. Maybe next year we’ll do the BVRT and the KKRT as one mega rail trial, which is essentially the KKRT being from Kilkivan QLD Kingaroy (around 90kms) and then do the BVRT of Yarraman to Wulkuraka - all up around 250kms.

Overall I found the trail ride this year so much easier on my gravel bike, being more comfortable in the seat with a few more kilometres and a tad more experience in the seat. I had a better understanding of my gears and a better feel of how my bike should feel. The company as always was amazing, and doing the ride without all these great people each year wouldn’t be the same without them. Gordon and I are looking forward to next years BVRT already!