Georgetown mtb trails(tassie keeps building)

droenn

droenn

Fat Man's XC President
George Town was rough as guts when I lived on the other side of the Tamar. More recently, I spent some time at Low Head which is a great little spot.

Just wondering if they are catering to local demand, or hoping to draw people from greater Launceston area / those who are down that way for Derby etc.
 
S

Scotty675

Cable thief
Georgetown is labelled rough and has been for years. I have spent a lot of time up there as a kid as have family up there. I remember when the waterslide opened up at the pool someone decided to stick Razor blades down it. Hopefully this will give the kids and youth something to do. Will be good for the town. The weekends away now will become week long trips with the amount of track work happening along the coast.
 
caad9

caad9

Likes Bikes and Dirt
kbekus said:
Wow what the actual fuck is wrong with someone that they stick razor blades on a water slide?
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Having visited George Town, it's not surprising - Gross generalisation, I know.
The place is seriously rough
 
Stredda

Stredda

Runs naked through virgin scrub
It will be interesting to see how the trails go, or wether it will be the playground of bogans on pit bikes
 
S

Scotty675

Cable thief
Spike-X said:
Did that actually happen? Because I've been hearing urban myths about this for as long as there have been water slides.
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Definitely happened, I was there the week after it opened. No surprise we weren’t allowed to use the slide first. We are talking 30 years ago this happened.
 
ozzybmx

ozzybmx

taking a shit with my boobs out
I've ridden quite a few places in Oz and its not just about throwing a lump sum at a place and building a "New Blue Derby", there a lot of " if they can have it, we can have it' attitude and a junket road trip of a few counsellors to Derby to see what's going on and the money that's being spent there is enough to make every council want a part of it.

Derby has the elevation, the access to shuttle points, the scenery, the rock, the soil, the ferns, the beauty of the landscape.... the town, the river to swim in, the interesting history, 1 hour to St Helens or Launceston... and not forgetting the awesome trail network. There are also 3-4 full time trail builders, who are now Dorset council employees, they have all the gear, machinery and if they need dirt or soil up on an inaccessible part of trail, they get it air dropped in. There is a continuing supply of $$$ for Derby and 100% council commitment.

I have seen it here in SA, they get funding for trail network, it gets built, then gets smashed till its riding pretty ordinary with no more cash injected. Forrest in VIC also springs to mind, nothing has changed there in 10yrs.

Derby is booked for 28th Dec 2019, till 17th Jan 2020... trip #3 to arguably the best trail network in Oz. Only leaving Derby for 2 days to go to Maydena again. Hoping the St Helens trail is also open and going by then... 2 options from Blue Tier... excited.
 
fatboyonabike

fatboyonabike

Captain oblivious
I used to work with a bloke who came from Georgetown, before he was a fitter he used to turn his as a bare knuckle boxer!
he was as tough as a coffin nail, but a really nice dude if you were on his good side.
 
downunderdallas

downunderdallas

Likes Bikes and Dirt
ozzybmx said:
I've ridden quite a few places in Oz and its not just about throwing a lump sum at a place and building a "New Blue Derby", there a lot of " if they can have it, we can have it' attitude and a junket road trip of a few counsellors to Derby to see what's going on and the money that's being spent there is enough to make every council want a part of it.

Derby has the elevation, the access to shuttle points, the scenery, the rock, the soil, the ferns, the beauty of the landscape.... the town, the river to swim in, the interesting history, 1 hour to St Helens or Launceston... and not forgetting the awesome trail network. There are also 3-4 full time trail builders, who are now Dorset council employees, they have all the gear, machinery and if they need dirt or soil up on an inaccessible part of trail, they get it air dropped in. There is a continuing supply of $$$ for Derby and 100% council commitment.

I have seen it here in SA, they get funding for trail network, it gets built, then gets smashed till its riding pretty ordinary with no more cash injected. Forrest in VIC also springs to mind, nothing has changed there in 10yrs.

Derby is booked for 28th Dec 2019, till 17th Jan 2020... trip #3 to arguably the best trail network in Oz. Only leaving Derby for 2 days to go to Maydena again. Hoping the St Helens trail is also open and going by then... 2 options from Blue Tier... excited.
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Agreed I think they started with Derby for a reason. It has a lot going for it. It will be interesting to see how many places can maintain things, I think it is also about quality and scale. People won't travel for some/ a few good trails, they will travel for several days worth of great trails and also most people are looking for a bit of other experience too, food/wine/nature etc. We stayed a couple of nights in St Helens on Tassie trip and arguably it has more going for it than Derby in some ways. It's much bigger and has more for the non cycling people in the family, our kids loved it and the trail down to the Bay of Fires combined with the St Helens trails will make it a great alternative destination to Derby. I think Tasmania is fast becoming the Pacific North West of Australia. A heap of great riding locations in a relatively dense area. Of course doesn't have the close large population of the PNW so the number of volunteers to maintain trails must be limited, council maintenance all the more important!

Not sure huge elevation is essential (it helps for sure) needs to be something different about the place to attract people I think. Tassie is spectacuar all over, the Blue Tier/Atlas ride is nothing short of magic for mind. I think you need a big hill and the right kind of topography to make that work, needs to be not too much climbing, especially for lazy/unfit people like me :)

I think every chance Wollongong could be awesome, huge riding community there, close to Sydney, great hills, close to town, great dirt, huge potential.
 
born-again-biker

born-again-biker

Is looking for a 16" bar
It's great to sing Derby's praises (I love the place too)
... but it was still a big risk to build anything there at all.
Pre-mtn bikes it was a pretty bleak town.

Now with hind sight, it looks like it was a well planned surety.
But I think they took a big risk - I can think of a few reasons why it could have flopped in the first year or two.
The first EWS (2017) cannot be overstated for providing momentum.
If they hadn't secured that event it might have been a flatter froth profile for the project...

Sent from my LG-H870DS using Tapatalk
 
rstim

rstim

Likes Dirt
Stredda said:
It will be interesting to see how the trails go, or wether it will be the playground of bogans on pit bikes
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This was my first thought on what will happen to the trails, but hopefully I'm wrong. Another 100km of trails 45 mins away can't be bad even if I have to share it with a few pit bikes.

Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk
 
ozzybmx

ozzybmx

taking a shit with my boobs out
You in Derby, the dirt is hard compacted awesomeness, right from the top of Blue Tier, down to the Weldy pub... then food and beers (does it get any better) then Atlas, yeah a bit of a climb at the start, then the good bit of Dam Busters, then the option of Krushkas to Trouty.

If it's not hard pack awesome dirt with ferns brushing your face, its unforgettable granite slabs that you will see nowhere else in Aus.

We are heading back for our 3rd "family" holiday in 4 years, 18 days in Derby with only 2 of them in Maydena, been a lot of places but there is no comparison.
 
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