2018 Blue Derby MTB and Mt Wellington North-South Track, Tasmania

You should visit the official website for full details.

https://www.ridebluederby.com.au/

All trails return back to the town, making the town central to the experience.

26 Dec 2018

Arrived late last night (approx. 11:30pm) and set up camp.  Didn’t sleep too well and ended up leaving the alarm on for a 5:00am ringer.  Don’t ask me why but I was in and out of sleep until 7:30pm.  I was riding at approx. 8:45am.  The weather was nice but you could already feel the temperature going up.

I rode approx. 1.5hrs (14.3km) with one big crash gashing the right knee and scraping the right elbow.  I just went too hot into an unknown corner and lost the front.  Lucky the bike was OK with only needing to adjust the twisted seat and stem once I got back into Derby.

  

This first run was full of great easy climbing in some wondrous forest full of ferns.  You felt like you were in a different world.  I started on a green run that went into a blue run that just kept going.  I had zero idea as to my location but I did get to a junction point that took me back to the town.  The route “Return to Sender” was fully of epic berms.  At the end of one downhill section was where I washed out.

I am amazed as to the sheer volume of well-designed trails.  I was riding my 2018 Giant Anthem Advanced Pro 1 XC bike, and it met the terrain well.  A trail bike with grippier tyres would have been ideal with more suspension travel.  But what I rode was great XC terrain.

After this first jaunt, I caught up with relatives and went out for round two.  You have to understand that I rarely ride MTB, and also my relatives are much better than me on an MTB, so it was good to have an escorted tour.  This was a nice easy ride of 3hrs (24.2km) but sadly Gil the “Numpty” Lee crashed three more times.  First time was another stupid washout, crashing on the same right knee/shin area.  Then a second one occurred when I was really enjoying a bermy flow and went too close to a tree...love tapped the tree with my right handlebar and I flung around onto my left knee and elbow and was on my bum again.  Left knee scraped and left elbow scraped.  I was feeling good until this happened.  At least I was symmetrically scraped.  The third crash was a simple washout at the very last corner of 'Return to Sender'...always good to crash on bleeding knees again.

This type of terrain is surprisingly not difficult, it is because I had not ridden for so long, and had no feel.  The Derby terrain (ie Blue trails) are really just that.  I can be done by anybody.

After finishing the second ride at approx. 3:15pm, I decided to let the scrapes dry out and hopefully form some scabs.  Time to rest and take a shuttle-serviced run tomorrow with the crew.  No point continuing to push when the body is needing some recovery time.  Tomorrow should be good.

I am camping in Derby for maybe 4 nights so that is more than enough time to explore the available trails.  I doubt that I will see it all.

This town is truly amazing.  I have rarely travelled to MTB destinations but Derby should be on everyone’s bucket list.

Now to rest and to see how tomorrow goes.

27 Dec 2018

Today is shuttle day.  A total of three shuttle runs with an expanded group of riders.

The first shuttle run started from Blue Tier and went to Weldborough.  It took a while to get the legs going.  My memory is bad but I think it started with some simple flow before some technical uphill.  Terrain is consistent with what has been seen yesterday.  Just amazingly long trails through visually impressive terrain.  The ample tree/fern coverage provided excellent sun protection and kept the heat off.

The second shuttle did the well-known Atlas trail.  It was long and the hands and feet were hurting by the end.  One of the group riders crashed on a wicked technical rocky section (my cousin) who ended up with three broken ribs.  He would take a long hike out to the fire road before being ambulance out.

The rest of us finished Atlas and we were all pretty tired.  Some would continue for a third shuttle run whilst others went for rest and beers.

The third run was a repeat of ‘Return to Sender’ which was excellent, but I just wanted a decent good run full of smoothness.  Only on the last bend, the one I had crashed on yesterday, I had to stop and dab.  Very disappointed that I did not get through that same spot smoothly.

Another day full of challenging fun technical runs.  Body was pushed and is was a great day.  Best of all was the final river wash down…water was beautifully clean and cool.  What a great way to get cleaned and refreshed for tomorrow.

Only my other cousin, Richard, was left at the campsite after the end of the day.  We had a great dinner with two other relatives at The Hub café/restaurant before the other two headed back to Launceston.  Thank god it was open as a couple of beers and a pizza went down perfectly.  Time to sleep well, with the exception of some numb nuts who decided to keep talking into the wee hours of the night in the campsite.  Pay back is always good when I set my alarm early (5am) and start getting ready with opening and closing my car doors –you keep me up, I wake you up the next day.

28 Dec 2019

It rained last night and was drizzling lightly in the morning.  Richard took me out on a good hill fire road ride (that the shuttle bus took to the start of ‘Return to Sender’).  I felt great on firm tarmac and gravel.  As soon as we hit dirt Richard had hit his terrain and I was in ‘try not to fall too far back’ mode.  Richard has some pretty mad skills and just bombs it, whereas I am much more cautious and less skilled.  

We rode two hours on the Kings Wall route.  It was good to do some hill climbing work and still had some technical flow trails.  We finished off by doing 'Return to Sender' and I finally conquered (smoothly) that last turn that had defeated twice before (or was it three times).

This was all the mountain biking I could take.  My body needed some rest.  I left Derby and headed to St Helens for a massive seafood feast.  Yum yum.

I did a couple of seaside stops as I left St Helens.  Tassie is pretty awesome!  It was just very hot.

I followed that up with a drive down to Hobart to check out the docks and my old university stomping ground.

29 Dec 2019 - Mt Wellington 

Mt Wellington North South Track (NST) should ideally be tackled from the start. I stupidly decided to ride there from the end point (Glenorchy MTB Park). At the very start you get smacked with a set of crazy long and steep fire roads (Merton and Priest), that I would have struggled to crest in the best of shape. No chance in my mangled shape. I had to walk it. Oh the shame. Oh the humanity. Won't someone think of the children.

Tried using GPS but that lost signal. Rode a lot of the NST backwards, then got lost and never made it to the trailhead. Probably only ended up doing half of it. Whoever said one couldn't get lost has obviously never met me.

Very windy, which was useful for pushing me back on the trial when I went a little offline.

A bit disappointed that I didn't get to do it all, but that is OK. I got the gist of it. Nowhere near as technical as Derby.