Road Condition Query - Oberon to Goulburn

[Red Leader]

Am organising a trip to the MotoGP in October (for 6 bikes) and I really hate highways and I've done lots of the usual twisties so I'm looking for some new and interesting roads to take.

I've found a road that runs from Oberon to Goulburn (via Porters Retreat, Taralga and a number of other minor towns) that I'd like to give a go. I'm told that there is only 5 to 10km of dirt and it's quite good (told by a cage driver though so who really knows what it's like for bikes).

I'd really like to find out from a local if I can what the road condition is like and if it's a worthwhile ride.

Suggestions of other roads to ride would be most welcome too.

[Gosling1]

Hi Red Leader

I have done this stretch a few times, up to Capertree for the Rage Rally - this was back in 97/98/99.(its a great gig). This is what it was like back then - it may have changed a bit since ( probably not too much.)

1. Heading south from Oberon, you have some good blacktop all the way through Black Springs almost to Porters Retreat.

2. Dirt then for about 30-odd kilometers, until you reach the Abercrombie River. Without a word of a lie, this stretch of dirt ( back then ) was like the Hume Highway of dirt roads. Hardly any corrugations, no potholes, good camber, and good vision through all corners. Mind you, after rain it could be a very different story. I got the distinct impression that this section was graded on a very regular basis.

3. The drop down to the Abercrombie River is really quite frightening. Caravans are banned, for good reason. You climb out at almost a 1-1 grade !!! Its OK on a bike, but you need to go very carefully.

4. A little bit of tar either side of the river, then back to dirt for about another 30?km of dirt until about 5?km outside of Taralga - there is a great pub on the RH side ( heading south), they have good tucker, and some good pinball machines !! The dirt stretch up to Taralga was very similiar to the first stretch from Porters to Abercrombie River.

On both dirt sides of the Abercrombie, you could easily sit on 100kmh without any issues. Well, you could back then, I have no reason to think the maintenance of this section would be any less now than then, it is reasonably well-used.

Any of the roads around Oberon/Hartley/Tarana/Jenolan Caves are just nirvana - except in school holidays

5. The stretch from Taralga to Goulburn is fairly boring, watch out for speed cameras anywhere within a 15-20km radius of Goulburn.

Sorry for the long post, I really enjoyed the trips up to the Rage.

regards
LeylandBrothersDave

[MickLC]

I did the same road in a car once about 15 years ago and agree with the Leyland Dave's assessment, although there was a fair bit of small corrugation on the faster bits when I did it.

[I-K]

That's the road I used to take when I'd go up to Oberon for weekends on the dirtbike.

Last time I did it was over a year ago now, and, at that stage, the section north of the Abercombie River was being steadily invaded by fresh tarmac from the north. There was, ummm, about 12-15km of dirt to the north of the river and about the same south of the river. The drop down to the river and the climb back out again are tarred.

The dirt sections have a fair bit of rock poking through and an amount of potholes and corrugation which does the roadholding of a 1991-vintage L300 van no favours; I'd do the trip north on Friday night and the combination of so-so dirt road, 5W van headlights and the aforementioned rubbish suspension pretty much kept my speed down to about 70 on the straight streteches and 40 or so on the corners.

The drop down to the river in both directions is sustainedly intense enough for the bridge over the river to arrive just as the brake pedal starts flopping onto the firewall. It'll be a good challenge on a bike, but the tarmac is too old, narrow, steep and sprinkled randomly with gravel (dragged on by oncoming pairs of vehicles dropping their outside wheels off the shoulder to pass each other) to really cut loose on it.

To the north of the river, the tarmac is brand new and wide, but the road is all high-speed kinks and sweepers. To the south, the tarmac is older, more worn, narrower, and the road has some tighter bits in it, especially as you start getting closer to Goulburn.

A big positive is that you pretty much can't do the stretch in question without riding the road between Oberon and Hartley; that's a vein melter.