Sorry was a bit harsh, but I get defensive when people attack my home town :)

Don’t rule out Sydney. Fantastic riding in the south with great TT training by Kurnell and climbing around the Royal National Park and down to Wollongong. The climate is also great, without the miserable winters that Melbourne has or the sweltering summers in Brisbane.

I will be flying from one of the worst locations in the world to do Triathlon, Mongolia, back to the best Tri location in the world for Busso in two weeks.

Come on. There are hardly any races in Sydney compared to melbourne Brisbane Gold Coast and Perth.

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Sydney can be fantastic if you live in the right area. I'd highly recommend the north. Hornsby and the suburbs a little further south, extending east to St Ives and Terrey Hills.

You would have easy access to excellent cycling with plenty of scenic hilly rides (often through national parks) with 10 climbs of 3 to 5km on popular cycling routes.

You're also spoiled for choice with trail running in the national parks of the northern suburbs, (Ku-Ring-gai Chase, Lane Cove, Garigal, Berowra Valley National Parks) and can even follow the Great North Walk for 250km all the way to Newcastle.

There's an abundance of 50 metre pools open all round.

Also the northern beaches are not too far away for ocean swimming, with Sydney's most popular swim group swimming every day of the year at Manly. The Bold & Beautiful swim even attracts at least 50 swimmers on wettest weekday is the middle of winter and over 400 on some weekends. It's popular because it's friendly, free and you swim in a marine reserve with abundant marine life. On days when the visibility is good, it's like swimming in an aquarium with beautifully coloured fish, rays, sharks (friendly ones), giant cuttlefish and occasionally turtles. Water temp only drops to about 15 or 16 C in late winter, maxing around 23C in summer.

It may or may not compare favourably with the swimming south of London.

The northern beaches is also a popular area among triathletes, though there are not as many riding options as the northern suburbs.

I don't know suburban Perth as well as Sydney, but again the amenity of the city depends on where you live.

The hills east of the Perth attract a number of cyclists on the weekends, though I'm yet to cycle there as it's a crappy ride from where I live close to the city. Perth's freeway bike path heading south is safe but is monotonously flat and not an overly inspiring ride if it's usual training option.

If you're living in the right suburb in Sydney, I'd rate Sydney as far superior to Perth for cycling (and trail running). However, there are many heavily congested areas of Sydney where you would drive to a safer, more pleasant place to ride.

If you don't like hot weather and intense sun, Perth isn't for you. Compared to Sydney, there is a harshness to the sun in Perth, and a high frequency and consistency of days over 35C. Perth is also the windiest city in Australia. Depending on where you live, your small chain-ring may get more use in headwinds than on climbs.

I'm guessing you work in a air conditioned office? That wasn't my memory of the past summer.

Please sell that "best climate in the world" line to my partner. Perth's summer is a major reason why she refuses to move here.

To be fair, of those 49, 17 are kids races, a few are women only, one is for emergency services personnel and the vast majority are sprint of shorter.

Also, WA is a big place. No one is going to drive a round trip of 1000 miles from Perth to Kalgoorlie for a 30 minute triathlon.

What are the 10 "community races"? I'm interested, but I couldn't see them. I only managed two ODT this summer, largely due to injury and work roster.

Lived in Brisbane, gold coast and currently Port Macquarie (ironman australia)

Brisbane was crap for cycling but really good for running. Lots of groups to train with.

Gold coast has some amazing rides, hinterland just behind the coast makes for some awesome climbing as well as plenty of flat country roads for uninterrupted tt efforts.
Running was ok but I found to be kinda boring vs Brisbane.
Lots of groups to train with here too.

Port while being the home of ironman is crap all round. Good for a holiday to train on the course though.

Plenty of good cycling from Port Macq if you head west of the Pacific Highway. Miles of quiet country roads and a sweet climb up to Comboyne.

Yeah but road quality and width of road + quality of drivers mean you want to limit time out there especially solo.

The running around town if you want flat limits you to basically doing loops of settlement point and canals.

One pool that's 6 lanes and full 90% of the time really limits swim enjoyment.

Don't get me wrong I love living here but for tri training the gold coast was awesome compared to this place.

your partner is soft. This summer just gone was really mild.
As for races, my local club puts on 10 per calender month. Other than that you have Karri Valley in pemberton which is basically an oly+, shoalwater another oly, bunbury another. Mullalloo has an oly, coogee is an oly. Mandurah has state interclub sprint, Allbarnone has several sprint races as a series. IMWA and 2 70.3's. Heaps of running events. Your not really short on races here.

Sounds like the traffic has become significantly worse since I used to training weeks in Port.

The roads out through Beechwood through Pappinbarra or winding back to Telegraph Point used to be near deserted. Yes, they were narrow in places, granular and you had to turn around when they became unsealed, but you pretty much had them to yourself. Way safer than riding the IM course.

Which is the point. Even a "really mild" Perth summer is consistently hotter than many other capital cities considered in this thread, (certainly Adelaide excepted). And that type of weather doesn't suit everyone.

While you may enjoy it, there's little value to the OP if we don't at least try to put aside parochialism and offer some objectivity.

And yes, my partner doesn't cope well with the heat.

BTW, 10 races per month? What club are you with? That's certainly sparked my interest.

And yes, there's certainly no shortage of running events around Perth with a healthy choice of events every weekend, from track and field, right up to 350km of ultra goodness at the Delirious WEST 200 Mile.

It doesn’t really matter. He will move to Brisbane. Hate the heat and them move south.

That’s clear from the first post.

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not per month, per season. Super sprints, 300/15/3...fun but rather painful.

I can’t remember what community races are listed on the triwa site, but races in gingin, Lancelin, Beverley, Albany, Gero plus a lot of the tri clubs have their own smaller races that are only listed on their Facebook page. You could probably race most weekends if you wanted to.

Interesting - I haven't heard much about Gold Coast in terms of riding so that's a location I'll add to my list. My knowledge about the area is limited to watching WTS racing and the city looks pretty flat so I wasn't thinking much about good riding there.

A little more background on me - 29 year old woman moving to Australia for a year. Focused on 70.3 distance right now (but have done Ironman and Olympic distances too). I'm in the healthcare industry currently but I am also a part time coach so looking for an area with lots of triathlon potential for clients, group rides, etc. Brisbane was higher on the list due to location, industries and also price point. I've heard Sydney & Melbourne have an insanely high cost of living and I'm not planning on having a car while in Aus so was worried about public transport.

I plan to spend the first 4 weeks or so of the trip looking into locations to settle so will add a lot of these cities to the itinerary. Although Perth is a little remote so that may take it out of the running!

I'd be looking toward the gold coast. Southern end from Broadbeach to currumbin is a great spot and easy access to lots of pools, good riding and plenty of groups to train with.

A reliance on public transport will likely have a considerable impact on your choice.

Sydney and Melbourne probably have the best public transport infrastructure. I lived in Sydney's north (4 different suburbs) without a car for at least 15 years. You just have to be relatively close to a train station.

Canberra may be a consideration for you too, with the first line of a new rail system is opening this year, heading north of the city. Athough other public transport isn't so efficient, so it would effectively rule out living in many suburbs. It's a fairly cycle-friendly city with a good network of bike paths to get around and relatively little traffic. Canberra also has a healthy endurance sport culture. Not just tri, but also running (road and trail), orienteering, etc.

I don't use public transport too often in Perth so I can't really vouch for what i's like to use on a regular basis, (walk to work, often ride MTB over the bridge if I'm going out in the city, often drive if I'm going further afield), though the buses and rail system has worked OK for me when I have used it.

I doubt that the Gold Coast would be much good for public transport.

Others may be able to add more regarding the other cities.

And Sydney's probably the worst place to ride a bike in Australia.

Wollongong on the other hand has the Wizards and is just fine.

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'It never gets easier, you just get crazier.'

Parts of Sydney are probably among the worst. Other areas are fantastic. As I say, it really depends on where you are based.

In the early '90s, John Howard (Olympic cyclist, Hawaii IM winner, cycling land speed record holder, not the former Prime Minister) visited Australia. John was impressed by the quality and beauty of the rides we took him on. Over a quarter of a century on, they're still great rides.

We're trying to help the OP here. There's nothing helpful in inaccurately slagging off other cities.

If you want to be constructive, contribute some insight into Wollongong's public transport system or what the Gong's work prospects would be for the OP.

I would steer clear of Sydney and Melbourne. They are overpriced and overrated.

Queensland is truly the greatest state in the country. The weather is great for training year round, the people are friendly and housing is more affordable.

Canberra:

Endless trails for running

Lots of pools

Ride options every end and side of town from Big hills in the south to flatter stuff North of the city.

Winter gets cold for two months

Not going to deny the overpriced bit about Melbourne and Sydney. But Brisbane weather is an acquired taste. It's either too hot, or it's too humid. Or both. Plus they haven't figured out daylight saving so in summer the sun comes up at 4 am.

Canberra is either -10 degrees or 30 degrees, plus it's full of politicians.