Marcelo Cardona: Meet the mind behind Mogo’s $8m mountain bike trail design
A small south coast town devastated by the Black Summer bushfires is rebuilding with a $8m mountain bike trail making it a tourist drawcard for adrenaline junkies.
The South Coast News
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A bold plan to build a breathtaking $8 million international standard mountain bike trail through some of the state’s most scenic bushland will help the small town of Mogo emerge from the devastating Black Summer bushfires.
For the track’s Colombian-born designer Marcelo Cardona, one of the most important features of the trails will be flow and variety.
“If you are riding a track for the first time, you need to be able to ride fast with confidence,” the Next Level Mountain Bike director said.
“I find when I ride a new track, I have to trust it. We want to design a trail network so people of different levels can ride together, and use new designs because mountain biking is evolving so quickly.
“There is so many kilometres of track, variety is the key.
“We want to keep groups together if they ride at different levels, because it is so important to create social interactions on the track.”
The 50-year-old former racer said he hoped Mogo would become “like a mini ski village”, with mountain biking as the tourist drawcard.
“The idea is to create the atmosphere of skiing or snowboarding, but with mountain bikes,” he said.
After moving to Australia 30 years ago, Mr Cardona raced in Europe and Canada before returning to his new home and realising there was a lack of high quality tracks.
He said he decided to build what wasn’t there, and now builds tracks across Australia.
Mr Cardona said he could “nerd out” about track design all day, adding that having a rider feel like they are on autopilot is important in the flow of the design.
“Having speed and then having to break is like having cash and throwing it in the air. It’s a waste,” he said.
“If you have speed then you want to do something cool with it.”
Mr Cardona said the rise in e-bike use has seen new age groups tackle what was once the domain of 25 to 45-year-olds.
“E-bikes allow people to go faster with less effort, so we’ll have what we call ‘fun climbs’, where you don’t need the fitness,” he said.
“The sport is moving away from racing uphill and becoming more social. People like to ride while they look at the environment around them.
“E-bikes are also bringing older and younger people to the tracks.
“Now riders are aged anywhere from six to 70.”
Mr Cardona said work on the Mogo trails could begin soon, with the project expected to be complete by December 2022.
He said part of the design process is about “respecting nature” and weaving the track around special landmarks throughout the bush.
“It has to be pretty, and look like its always been there,” he said.
“You don’t want it to look like a building site, you want to enhance nature.”
He said the trail will complement others on the south coast, like Tathra, which draws in hundreds of tourists for its annual race meet.
“The more events you have through the year the better. It helps create something to attract tourism,” he said.
Mr Cardona said it’s also important to “save the best for last”.
“You want everyone to finish with a smile with the best features of the track,” he said.
“We want riders to have as much fun as possible.”
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