The Dirty Rat 2024

**Event Currently at capacity**Please email [email protected] to join the waitlist should there be any cancellations. Come and join us for our inclusive and supported fun-filled 3 day ride in Gariwerd. This three day route has been created from many years of experience riding backroads into the National Park from Ararat, thus THE DIRTY (Ara)RAT was […]

Route Planning and GPS Navigation 101

Keen to plan your own routes? Read on for some ideas and resources to get you started. Kia Binch and I (Pete) did a presentation in March 2023 on this very topic, we’ll do our best to cover everything we spoke about on the night. Make a cuppa and settle in!

Mid-Winter Campout

We’ll be heading out to camp on the banks of Birrarung on July 8th so get your warm sleeping bags out and get ready for a cozy night around the fire.

Fools Gold Recap

The inaugural Fools Gold 420 bikepacking event departed from Maryborough at 8am on Saturday 22nd April. Almost 30 participants started, and approximately half completed the 420km event through Central Victoria in times ranging from 27 hours to 4 days.

Brisbane Ranges Easy Overnighter

Calling all easy-riders and aspiring bikepackers. We’ll be heading out into the Brisbane Range for an easy overnighter on March 25th/26th

Kia and Heath’s Murray Meander

I have a habit of winging Easter trips. Something about the freedom of five days off, and the abundance of amazing routes across Victoria, I often find myself paralysed by choice. A day or two before Easter, my friend Heath and I had a bright idea. We decided to turn our backs on every one of Victoria’s amazing established routes, and poke around somewhere neither of us had ever been before.

Amazing East Warburton

You ever go on a ride that leaves you thinking ‘OH MY GOD everybody needs to go ride that!!!’ This is one of those rides.

The Dirty Rat

The Dirty rat is a choose your own adventure west of Ararat into the area known as Gariwerd.

A Beginners Guide to the Hunt 1000

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Fancy doing a 1000km unsupported bikepacking route through some of Australia’s most rugged and beautiful high country?

Click through and download the “Beginners guide to the Hunt 1000” PDF that Huw put together, which shared his experience of preparing for, and riding the 2017 Hunt 1000 event in the hope of inspiring more people to take the plunge and give it a go in 2018.

Bikepacking the Blackwood Forest: Commuter Campout 2.0

Our friend and talented wordsmith Pepper Cook has dropped a few musings about our latest installment of Commuter campout: Single Track. Whiskey. Leaping Frogs. Prairie Breakers. Large bearded men and one lady in flannos riding bikes adorned with front baskets, complete with decorative foliage. These are just a few items to be found in the […]

Formerly named Commuter Cycles, Off Course Bike Shop is Melbourne's home of commuting, touring and adventure cycling. We stock Surly Bikes, Kona, Salsa, Tumbleweed, Wilde & Pelago and Australia's largest range of Bikepacking gear. Come visit us in the heart of Brunswick, or browse over 6000 bikes, parts and accessories in our online shop and get them shipped to your door post haste.

Off Course Bike Shop

Off Course acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional custodians of the lands and waterways in the area now known as Brunswick, and pays respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging, as well as to all First Nations’ communities in Australia.