The TDU is too hard, plan my week for me pleeeeaaaase!

Can’t decide what to do now that you’re here in Adelaide? Group not have a clear leader? Live in Adelaide and found yourself with a week or two off? We've cherrypicked a handful of things that have caught our eye from the complete overload of concurrent events from the next couple of weeks, so here's a kind of master post you can reference anytime you need to make plans!

THURSDAY JAN 10

The beginning of the season’s racing! TheSantos Tour Down Under WTDU starts in Hahndorf (a cute little German town) and ends in Birdwood (a great Motor Museum!). If you’re riding out to Hahndorf to catch the start we suggest building a ride around Aldgate Valley Road (Aldgate-Mylor), one of the best cruisy, windy roads in the Adelaide HIlls, and if you’re heading to Birdwood for the stage finish might we suggest the somewhat dirtier Millbrook Rd (just this side of Kersbrook) which, when paired with Lower Hermitage Rd is an excellent route to the Northern end of the Lofty Ranges!

FRIDAY JAN 11

Stage 2 sees the WTDU head up to the Barossa for some hot laps in wine country! If you’re riding up from Adelaide, hit Trial Hill Rd (part of theRide the Mawson Trail) and make sure not to miss the turn off to the Steingarten lookout on your way into the Valley. This is some of SA’s most beautiful riding and would be a shame to miss!

SATURDAY JAN 12

Join the legends at thePort Adelaide Cycling Club for their ride out to the third stage of the WTDU - with a road option and a gravel option there’s something for everybody! PACC is one of the most inclusive and proactive clubs in the country, so get your havin’ fun hat on and head along for a day out with them. We don’t have a road recommendation for this day because they know all the roads as well as we do!

SUNDAY JAN 13

With no professional racing out in the hills to dictate your schedule today, it’s a perfect opportunity to take on some of the local roads we’ve grown so fond of and take in a classic Adelaide amateur race - Norwood’sRapha Uraidla Kermesse. Climb Little Italy, descend Greenhill Rd, or challenge yourself to the Mt Osmond/Old Freeway double and reward yourself with a coffee and a pastry in Stirling. If you feel like a little more climbing, find Sprigg Rd and ride it from the bottom - it’s one of our all time favourites. Whatever you do, make sure you drop past the racing down in the Uraidla valley - it’s a super tight course that always makes for interesting watching!

There are loads of events on in the afternoon - a local retro bike swap meet is taking place in Kent Town (Adelaide Swap Meet) and we’re hosting some of our favourite Aussie cycling brands here in Ebenezer Place from 12-8pm only a hundred or so metres from the professional racing taking place in the afternoon - make sure you don’t miss theSouthAustralia.com WTDU Stage 4 to see who takes the winner’s jersey! More details on our event can be found over atMAKER | Sunday Jan 13.


MONDAY JAN 14

Monday’s always have us dreaming of coffee, and with good reason! With some of the country’s best specialty coffee establishments and roasters, you should certainly take some time out of your busy riding schedule to drop into one (or loads of them)! The four points of the compass are marked with four of our favourite coffee houses in the city, withFairweather West,Monday's Coffee Store North,Sibling South, andExchange Specialty Coffee East, every corner of the city is a stone’s throw from an excellent brew. If we had this Monday off you might catch us climb up Windy Point to overlook the city before skipping through Belair National Park and back down the Old Freeway.

TUESDAY JAN 15

With the men’s racing taking over from the excitement of the WTDU the week before, Tuesday sees Port Adelaide with the Stage finish and a huge party to go along with it (Peloton AT the PORT - Street Paaaaaarty!. There’s even a cyclocross race for those keen to get sideways in some off camber dirt down at the Port (Focus CXtwiLITE | Peloton at the Port)! If we can wrangle the afternoon off you might even catch some of theBombtrack Treadly Racing team out there! With the excitement going coastal this day, it’s a great opportunity to experience Adelaide’s excellent beaches! Ride out to Brighton beach and grab a pastry from theBrighton Jetty Bakery (they do excellent vegan sweets and savouries!) before making your way along esplanades and avenues that make up our beautiful beach roads. Head all the way up to North Haven and back over one of the couple of bridges to catch up with the pros at the Port for the stage finish before sticking around and grabbing a bite at the newly refurbishedPort Admiral Hotel!


WEDNESDAY JAN 16

The highlight of many TDU’s is the fast-paced and energetic sprint finishes, but at PACC’sRoller Frenzy XI you get all the fun of a sprint finish over and over and over again! With World Champions and amateurs going head to head, there are always some surprises and some familiar faces turning out at this event, and you’d be silly to miss it! If you’re up for some high-cadence punishment of your own, try Tregarthen Rd out the back of Greenhill - we can’t say you’ll enjoy it (or want to do it again, ever) but the rollers of that particular road are super fun to experience at least once! If you’re more in the mood for some Vitamin G, might we recommend Basket Range’s famed Blockers Road - a climb that has claimed many a road shoe scuff when cyclists who brought tiny cassettes to the hills have had to foot down. When you’re done you can turn around and limp home, or you can keep going along Mawson and Croft roads into Lobethal and refuel before returning home via Gorge Rd - another iconic stretch of Adelaide tarmac (those with anything left in the tank can scoot on up Corkscrew and descend Montacute Rd, but a resurfacing has left it a better climb than descent this year!). Just make sure you get back in time to get to the Roller Frenzy. Seriously!

THURSDAY JAN 17

At our second MAKER event for the week,MAKER | Thursday Jan 17, we’re excited to bring more and more of Australia’s favourite cycling brands into the Tour Village! With even more stallholders than Sunday’s event and, for the first time ever, Darren Baum (Baum Cycles) gracing us with his presence (and his bikes!) this is one not to miss. Head on down to the Tour Village and soak up the atmosphere while you put faces to your favourite brand names! While you're down here, make sure you check out the VTWO Events Beat The Street Time Trial (if the Car Park Climb were a slinky, imagine you've pulled really hard on each end and flattened it out) for some fast-paced and interesting racing! With the event going well into the night , today’s a day you can afford to go long - for those looking to get offroad there are two roads we’d love you to experience and they tie together pretty nicely: Old Bull Creek Road into Strathalbyn and Hillview Road out of it! There are some excellent views out the back of the Lofty Ranges and Hillview in particular is one of the quietest roads in the hills - whenever we get the chance we love to head out that way.


FRIDAY JAN 18

Friday is one for sleeping in - with loads happening in the evening! Join Curve for theirCurve Cycling Butterfly Ride TDU 2019 taking in some of our favourite offroad foothills riding, then drop back past Vic Park to catch what might be some of the week’s fastest racing atAttaquer Hot Laps! The racing is also counting as the Elite SA Crit Championships, so there’ll be plenty of locals out to stick it to the interstaters with something to prove. Your road homework for the day is easy - find Knox Rd on the city side of the hills - it’s a breathtaking little climb and the dirty skip over to the Skye Lookout is well worth the (likely) pinch flat.

SATURDAY JAN 19

This whole week you’ve been in Adelaide and you’ve not come to say hi at Treadly? With this being our last trading day for the TDU season it’ll be your last chance to grab a Treadly tee, a Bombtrack Treadly Racing cap, or just ogle all the cool bikepacking gear we have. Did you know there’s aMoots gravel bike and a Jack Taylor tandem in the store? We’re cool, I swear. Come past and grab a brew from our stash ofTwenty One Coffee if there’s any left!

SUNDAY JAN 20

Our only day off for the season! We’ll be cruising down to Kangarilla the long way and stopping short before we get all the way to the hustle and bustle of Willunga Hill. We’ll hit as much gravel as possible and likely stop for snacks a bit, so if you get to the end of the TDU and can’t be bothered making sure you’re in your Sunday best for the masses, throw on shorts and a t shirt and join us for a cruise. With a long break at about 65km to watch the end of the race, we'll try to keep it under 100km for the day (optional scenic loop to tack on for those with the legs) because honestly who needs a 150km ride when you've just ridden every day for two weeks? (The answer is: some of you, and that's cool. Enjoy it!)


ROADS TO AIM FOR WHEN YOU’RE BORED AND CAN'T DECIDE WHERE TO GO:

Aldgate Valley Road (Aldgate)
Millbrook Road (Kersbrook)
Trial Hill Road (Pewsey Vale)
Burdetts Road/Little Italy (Basket Range)
Sprigg Road (Mt Lofty)
Melville Gully Road (Belair NP)
Blockers Road (Basket Range)
Hillview Road (Strathalbyn)
Knox Terrace (Skye)
Mount Bold Reservoir (Kangarilla)
Nicols Road + Gully Road (Carey Gully)
Third Falls Track + Moores Road (Norton Summit)

Making your own routes is one of the best things about riding in the Adelaide Hills - we'd hate to take that away from any of you. Jump into Strava, MapMyRide, Mapout, hell, grab a paper map and squiggle on it with your friends. Satellite view in Google Maps is your friend!

(However, if you insist on downloading a .gpx file here are some Sam curated forVeloRoo:

Sunday 13th, Day 1 Ride (AM)
Distance: 63.57 km
https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/2339898841

Tour to KOM and possible flyby!
Distance: 84.49 km
https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/2339908312

Train to Galwer // Epic Day!
Distance: 117.59 km
https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/2339911747

Stage 3 // Smaller loop to watch riders Flyby 6x
Distance: 49.47 km
https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/2339915272

Stage 4 // Catch Flyby in Mylor (AM)
Distance: 66.67 km
https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/2339919334

Stage 5 // Hills to Coast
Distance: 45.37 km
https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/2339922475
View from Majors Rd Overpass

Stage 6 // Dirt to Dawn Patrol
Distance: 52.35 km
https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/2339927305)