GULF TO GULF
30 days to ride the 'G2G' across Australia's remote outback between Port Augusta, Birdsville and Karumba.
NEXT RIDES:
RIDE: 15 May to 13 June 2025
(with transfers: 14 May to 16 Jun)
18 May to 16 June 2026
(with transfers: 17 May to 19 Jun)
Transfers are from Adelaide and on to Cairns.
Join one of Australia's great bike challenges, tracing a trail Gulf-to-Gulf across the heart of our amazing continent.
These ancient lands reflect the heritage of Australia's First Peoples who lived out there admirably well - and the courage, tragedies and successes of European explorers like the famed but unfortunate Burke and Wills - and the settlers who forged their existence in what was, for them, a land of unforgiving remoteness.
The ride has 4 stages, each about a week:
Week One explores the majestic Flinders Ranges, riding from Port Augusta 430km to reach the desert railhead of Marree in 6 days (7th day is rest).
Week Two traverses the legendary Birdsville Track, 520km of gravel in 8 days including a rest day at Mungerannie.
Week Three rolls 720km across Queensland's vast Channel Country to Cloncurry in 8 days. Rest days in Boulia and Cloncurry (with optional bus trip to Mt Isa).
Week Four rides 450km in 5 days through the Gulf Country to Normanton and Karumba (followed by end-of-ride rest day).
Note the change for 2025 to follow a more direct route from Boulia to Cloncurry, saving 100km (and avoiding the busy highway from Mt Isa to Cloncurry). We'll soon adjust the map.
The most recent rides took place in May-June and June-July 2022 and May-June 2024 with 20-24 riders. Ages ranged from 30s to 70s with the median age in the early-60s.
Outbike's first G2G event was in 2005.
To express interest, seek further information or register
Contact OUTBIKE: Email outbike.rides@gmail.com or message/call Ralph 0406 440418
For 2025 we have 20 riders registered as of Sep 2024.
Download 2025 registration / ride information and event waiver:
THE RIDE IN BRIEF
Riders transfer from Adelaide on our bus on the day prior.
In 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2016, 2019, 2022 (2 rides) and 2024, riders set forth from SA's Port Augusta to ride ~2230kms to eventually reach Karumba, Queensland - crossing the continent on the way.
For 2025, we ride from Port Augusta on 15 May.
Maximum 25 riders (minimum 15). We will 'overbook' to 27-28 riders to allow for withdrawals.
Staff of 3-4 plus helpers to give a high level of service together with 3 or 4 support vehicles.
You need to be ready to cycle days of 80km on dirt roads (dirt is about 670km, most of this is the Birdsville Track) of varying surfaces! On the sealed roads (about 1400km), the longest days are 100-120km. About 400km has been sealed since 2005.
The 2025 ride is 30 days including 5 rest days. Transfers and a Karumba rest day makes it all 34 days. We include 33 nights camping (11 at bush sites), daily hearty breakfasts, lunches on ride days, dinners on remote camping nights plus Wilpena and Angorichina (local pubs the rest at own cost), extensive rider support and transfers on our bus from Adelaide and afterwards to Cairns.
Participation per rider in 2025 is $8000.
We've talked on the rides about ideas for faster and slower versions of this event to suit different rider abilities - but the 30 days seems to work well for a range of abilities and gives us some flexibility for weather events that we can't predict.
In 2016, 60mm of rain hit Birdsville after we arrived and delayed us for the rest day and 4 more days. We were glad to be in town and not trapped on the track! Back on the road, some 100km days became 150km or even 200km and many riders still made it the whole way.
In 2019, floodwaters from summer monsoon rains in NW Qld closed the upper part of the Birdsville Track (4 days of the ride) from Feb to Jun. It didn't reopen in time for us so we bused back from Mungerannie to Lyndhurst and detoured, driving via the Strzelecki Track and Innamincka to Birdsville. This slow, rough and dusty bus trip took 5 days (over 1000km) but the ride was back on schedule.
In 2022 the Birdsville Track had been closed but opened in time as the Northbound ride approached. Then upon leaving Birdsville, new floodwater closed the bridge behind us same day, not to reopen until a week into the Southbound ride.
In 2024 again the Birdsville Track had been closed for months. Over the years, we've pushed back the start from late-April to mid-May to allow late-summer floodwater to drain. Incredibly, a weather front and rain coincided with our arrival to Birdsville and the Track closed behind us. This time 26mm of unseasonal rain fell Fri-Sat into our rest day but by Noon Monday the road north opened and we still made Boulia comfortably in 4 days (having also to detour on the gravel around Lake Machatie).
More detailed information is downloadable along with the registration form and waiver.
ABC INTERVIEW NEARLY HALF-WAY
"It's something I’ve dreamt about for many years, actually I never thought I’d be on the Birdsville track, and here I am on a bicycle, and we’re only about 80 kilometres from Birdsville now, and its been absolutely marvellous, its been difficult, hard, the flies have made it worse of course, and the sand and the dust".
Helmut Gebels speaking to ABC Radio, Birdsville Track Inside Route, May 2005
THE G2G NORTH RIDE - read day by day
View images from past G2G events