Six out of ten for scenery, eight out of ten for how your legs feel by the time you're loading the bike back on the car. That's the honest scorecard for a day out on the Munda Biddi Trail Perth Hills sections, and it's about time someone said it plainly instead of just calling the whole thing iconic and leaving it there.
I rode a chunk of it again last weekend, solo this time, on the gravel bike rather than the hybrid I usually drag out for anything with a fire trail label. That choice mattered more than I expected, and I'll get to why.
What a day on the Munda Biddi Trail Perth Hills sections looks like
Most people doing this as a day ride start at Mundaring and point themselves toward Dwellingup, or do the reverse and get someone to collect them. It's roughly 60-odd kilometres depending on which link sections you take, and none of it is flat. That's the first thing that catches people out — the trail markers make it look like a gentle amble through jarrah forest, and instead you're grinding up fire trail gradients that would embarrass a lot of formal climbs.
The forest is genuinely good. Tall jarrah and marri, the odd patch of wandoo where the soil changes, and enough shade that even on a warm day you're not cooked by midday. But