Brisbane City River Loop
City Ride
Type: Road Riding
Difficulty: Beginners – Medium
Distance: 35.46km
Elevation Gained: 282m
Estimated Moving Time: 1.5 hour
Summary
The infamous Brisbane City River Loop. It’s like the comfort route for local, doesn’t matter what level of cyclist you are. You can’t go wrong with cruising Riverloop on monday for your reco ride, time trial thursday or friday social loop.
It’s called riverloop as you’ll be riding around the Brisbane river (the brown snake). Started from the Brisbane city – all the way to westend and back to the city.
We’ve divided the route profile into three section. The first half of the ride will be more undulating than the rest. There are multiple rolling hills between Brisbane City to Indooroopilly. Mostly between 4-8% rolling hills, with one short 14% pinches at the St.Lucia golf links
Once you have passed the pinch, it’ll be flatter until Dutton Park. The highlight of the second part will be the famous Brisbane Corso (3-4km of flat road, popular as a sprint segment for local). You don’t need to sprint out as it was also a great road to enjoy the ride along the river.
The last bit is what we called “the last push” as we have seen some people literally pushing their bikes. There are 2 last hill before you descending to the westend and finish the ride. The first one and the hardest one is the cemetery hill – a less than 1km climb with gradient between 9-13%. Second one is Highgate hill, a bit easier with gradient starting from 7 and gradually going down to 4%.
Overall, the reason why local loves it due to the accessibility in the city where they can ride before going to work. At the same time it’s not a boring route where you can get all rolling hills, pinches, and flat road for sprint segment.
note: it’s not a fully closed bike way route, its a mixed with an open road – you have to be really careful when sharing the road with others.