TasWeekend: On your mountain bike

WITH word spreading about our mountain biking scene, riders are flocking from all over to check out our world-class tracks.

Jane and Travis Deane, authors of Tasmanian Mountain Bike Guide Book. Picture: SUPPLIED

WITH a Tasmanian track set to host the Enduro World Series in April, and with a comprehensive guidebook to Tassie’s 41 tracks now available, the word is out about the state’s potential for mountain biking. With Tasmania’s combination of rugged, hilly terrain and spectacular scenery, we are on track to become the next mountain-biking mecca.

Travis Deane’s new Tasmanian Mountain Bike Guide Book lists, road-tests and rates every track. “We included a total of 41 tracks in the book, which is a huge number,” the West Australian rider and author says.

“WA has 54 tracks, and it is a bigger place with a bigger population, so Tassie really has a lot to offer.” Deane and his wife Jane wrote a guidebook to West Australian mountain bike tracks in 2011, which proved so popular it has been reprinted four times. And it was a family reunion in northern Tasmania last year that inspired Deane to write a similar guidebook for the island state.

“I got to do some riding while I was up there and wrote an article about the Derby track for a magazine,” he says.

The couple returned for a month in April to ride as many tracks as they could. The Derby track is part of the Blue Derby Mountain Bike Trail, about 80km of mountain bike track between Derby and Blue Tier in the North East.

The first stage of the $3.1m project was opened in February last year, and the fourth and final stage of the trail was officially opened last month, designed and built by trail company World Trail.

The high standard of the trail, along with the temperate rainforest scenery, led to the Blue Derby trail being chosen to host next year’s Enduro World Series mountain bike championships, the first time the event has been hosted in Australia.

And riding on the back of the new trail is the Blue Derby Pods Ride, a tourism venture that will use the world-class trail network for an innovative new “soft adventure” experience.

Riders prepare to tackle the Blue Derby Mountain Bike Trail. Picture: BLUE DERBY PODS RIDE

In what is best described as a Three Capes Track-style experience on two wheels, the Blue Derby Pods Ride lets riders tackle the combined track over three days, spending each night camped in specially designed “pods” suspended from trees, and being treated to good Tasmanian food and wine in the evenings.

Blue Derby Pods Ride director Tara Howells says the soft adventure market is “becoming a big one”.

“We are planning to have the pods ready to launch the tours in April, to coincide with the Enduro World Series, when there will be a lot of international attention on the trail,” she says.

“Having the Enduro here not only proves we are world class, but will guarantee worldwide attention.” Howells says much of what makes for an excellent mountain bike track comes naturally to Tasmania.

“Obviously trail design is important and, with Glen Jacobs from World Trail, we’ve been fortunate to have the best trail-builder in the world working on this one,” she says.

“But the other things that make a track world class include the scenery, and Tasmania’s North East is a place of incredible natural beauty. And the third thing you need is good soil. Rotorua [in New Zealand] gets a lot of praise because of its particularly good soil type, and Blue Derby is lucky enough to have been compared to that, with this tackiness of the soil.

“You can build great trails anywhere in the world but you can’t fake those last two things. And when you have all three together, it is hard for anyone of any skill level not to have fun.” But visitors will need to do more than just ride Derby to sustain an industry.

Deane believes the key to really boosting the industry is a solid information campaign.

“Mainland cycle tourists tend to get on planes and fly to New Zealand,” he says. “They don’t get on a plane to go to Melbourne or Queensland or Tasmania. And that is because New Zealand has really marketed itself.

“Riders know they can get off at Christchurch and Queenstown, and there’s a bike assembly rack at the airport, there’s a network of trails and the guidebooks are readily available – you can put together an itinerary and just go and do it.

“We’ve invested millions of dollars up at Derby but there was no guidebook, and very little other information available, so to me that seemed like an obvious gap that needed to be filled.

“Even I was confused about what Tasmania had to offer, and I had an interest in this. So other people must be baffled.

“As it is, even if people flew in to ride Derby, they’d drive up to Derby, ride that trail, then get back in their car and drive back to the airport, missing all these other ones along the way like Hollybank and Trevallyn, and that’s a shame.” As well as informing interstate and overseas visitors about the tracks in Tasmania, Deane hopes his book will encourage Tasmanians to discover more of the state, as many tend to focus only on the tracks near where they live.

“Each track gets a star rating, a skull rating for potential danger, and the international rating, and we always take three mobiles on three different networks and test each one for coverage,” he says.

Deane says he can clearly see a buzz building around Tasmania’s mountain bike scene, with people interstate starting to talk more about the state’s tracks, and with increased magazine coverage from people who have visited, been impressed and written about their experiences.

Howells agrees. “Our reputation isn’t just growing Australiawide, but worldwide,” she says. “Glen Jacobs, who designed the Blue Derby trail, has been travelling Europe recently and he says everywhere he went – Turkey, Portugal and so on – everyone has been asking him about Blue Derby.

“Last year’s tourism statistics showed the number of people visiting Tasmania to go mountain-bike riding increased by 75 per cent. So the word is out.” Deane says the future is bright for mountain biking in Australia, “and other places are looking to emulate what has happened in Tassie at Blue Derby”. “The term ‘world class’ is starting to be thrown around a lot in other states as they try to establish themselves, and Tassie needs to be on board for that,” he says.

Howells says Tasmanians have a simple job to do as the industry grows.

“As locals, the most important thing to do is talk about it and support it,” she says.

● Tasmanian Mountain Bike Guide Book, by Travis and Jane Deane, is available in leading bike shops for $34.95, or visit mtbguidebook.com

For more great lifestyle reads, pick up a copy of TasWeekend magazine in your Saturday Mercury.

Originally published as TasWeekend: On your mountain bike