Probably worth a quick summary of my trip to Derby (with a day at Maydena):
My +1 and I just spent a bit over a week in Tassie – drove over via the boat. Mostly Derby with a day riding in Maydena.
Have to say Derby was awesome for us – amazing riding, really well set up, great mix of accom options, good local infrastructure. It’s a model for other areas in my view in terms of a community growth project (as opposed to a private bike park project). As riders neither of us are that crash hot but we get through most stuff. We aren’t really into (capable of!) gaps and airtime. Both like rocky stuff despite not being great at it. Also don’t mind a climb, especially if it has a good reward at the end. I’m on a SC HTLT, she’s on a Bronson. Both a tad overbiked and totally over caring
Local for us is the Gong / southern sydney, with occasional trips to Thredbo or CBR.
Accom was a combo of camping (free – with good facilities, clean loos, some covered areas, water, next to a lovely river, and $4 showers) and a small cabin behind the shops (neat as a pin, warm, dry, cosy, and easy location). Food was a combo of eat in, coffees out and a meal at the Dorset pub. For a tiny town in the middle of nowhere services were great. A mini-mart / IGA is in the next town west and a full blow supermarket in Scottsdale a bit further west.
We rode pretty much every tagged trail bar the double blacks (detonate/shearpin/kumma gutza), Krushka’s descent and Atlas ascent tracks with a mix of trail and uplifts. The trail maps at key locations are a bit hard to follow, Trailforks is probably the go; the blue marker posts however are really well located and following their guidance pretty much always worked.
Riding scenery is great, which is not always the case for forestry lands. Forests, ferns, rock slabs, boulders.
Up tracks are all really well put together – in fact this is a feature of all the tracks – well conceived, well executed, good consistency.
The Blue Tiers / Atlas day is amazing and a must do. Quality tracks, endless pedalless flow, simply fkn awesome riding, not too much up, lunch at a pub, well organised shuttles. What’s not to love?
Favourites? Roxanne, upper Black Stump, Flickety Sticks in full, Trouty esp the rock slab portions.
I rode the Derby round of the Tas enduro series on the first weekend (it was on and enduro events are often a pretty good way to ride a few good trails and links in a new area). Well run event, nice folks and I managed to avoid the wooden spoon in my category (despite blowing a jockey wheel at the end of stage 2 and doing 3-6 +transitions in 3rd gear singlespeed), and won $100 of free shuttles in the presentation giveaways
It was hot and I was sure glad to finish in one piece and not melted into the granite. This was a great way to get a good feel for the layout of the area. Despite an event being in full swing huge parts of the area were open to general riding and a bunch of shuttles were in operation. Was also great to ride a lot of things later with more than one gear.
We will be back.