Mont Buller EPIC trail help on planning a trip in 2 weeks

[Pierrick]

Hi all,

Sorry it's a little duplicate from the massive thread about Mount Buller, but I need some help to organise something there in mid January. It's my first time in Australia.
I will be traveling to Melbourne for a wedding of a friend and would love to use this opportunity to ride in Australia as least one day.

Basically, I would like to know if it's recommended to look for a guide for the first time? If so, do you have any body to recommend? Even better would be someone from here

Travelling from Melbourne ? Any car sharing option? Do you have any app or website I might use for this?

Renting any shop to recommend ? For the epic trail which kind of bike do you recommend?

Also about acoomodation, I guess I might not be able to do the return trip in one day from Melbourne.

Thanks in advanced for your help,

Pierrick
A French soon lost in Australia ^^

 

[teK--]

Hi Pierrick

There are no shuttles from Melbourne to Buller in Summer so I suggest hire a station wagon or minivan big enough to carry yourself and your gear/friends.

Book a shuttle from Mirimbah to Mt Buller Village before you arrive. Then you can drive from Melbourne to Mirimbah, unpack your gear then take the shuttle to the start of the Epic.

If you need to hire a bike you can do so at ATC cycles on the mountain. I would suggest an all mountain bike around 140-150mm travel front and rear.

The Epic has good signage so you don't need a guide. I only suggest once you get to the top of the Stonefly climb, instead of following the official route you should continue on Stonefly to do the amazing descent.. once you are back at Howqua Gap, take the circuit Road to Telephone Box Junction there is a cafe there so you can refresh and refill.

Thereon continue the Epic trail all the way to the end at Mirimbah where your car is parked.. that makes about 55kms ride and should take around 5-6 hours for a reasonably skilled rider taking their time to enjoy. Once finished have a swim in the river and finally drive to top of mountain to return your bike (if you hired).

There is not much open on the mountain in Summer I'd recommend stay the night in Mansfield on the way back there are a lot more food and accommodation options.

Have fun!

 

[Pierrick]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for all those great details. I will investigate more on the small detour you suggest from the Epic trail.

I'm actually travelling alone so I need to figure out the best way to reach Mont Buller from Melbourne as I'm quite on budget renting a car might be an issue.
I found these coach: https://ptv-prod-timetables.s3.amaz...-TIMINGPOINTS-01V28--1514398210/timetable.pdf
Do you think it's fine to reach Mansfield ? Then I will try to find a way to reach Mount Buller the next morning.

Pierrick

 

[teK--]

Yes If you get to Mansfield it may be ok. Check with your accomodation there are real estate agents that regularly travel from Mansfield to Mt Buller to the properties they manage. If you are renting with them they might be happy that you catch a ride with them (since you won't have a bike).

 

[kbekus]

hey all, so I've offered to go along with Pierrick since I've never ridden the Epic and I'm keen. Our very tentative plan is to head up on the Sunday night 7th of Jan, stay in Mansfield then shuttle up to Buller and ride down. Shuttles don't run on the Monday so I've emailed asking if they'll do a one off service for us and they also hire MTBs at their shop in Mansfield so might do a package for us. Any other Rotorburners want to come along for the drive? I've got a fairly comfy station wagon and a 3 bike rack so could potentially take 2 more for the price of shared petrol (all dependent on a shuttle being possible).

 

[mtb101]

just park at the top in the mt buller village and do epic then ride back up, it aren't that hard on the road and you just plod along on the mtb,

it took me 7 hours total with a ride time of around 4 hours 40 minutes. total: 58k/2851metres climbing.

great day on the bike, one tip is stash food/drink maybe a jacket at Mirimbah for return trip up mountain.

otherwise this french bloke is going to think we're all soft.

 

[kbekus]

but I *am* soft?

 

[link1896]

2851m of climbing is a shit load, even those of us who might get to 1000m in a days riding will be shattered. Energy replenishment would be critical

 

[Pierrick]

just park at the top in the mt buller village and do epic then ride back up, it aren't that hard on the road and you just plod along on the mtb,

it took me 7 hours total with a ride time of around 4 hours 40 minutes. total: 58k/2851metres climbing.

great day on the bike, one tip is stash food/drink maybe a jacket at Mirimbah for return trip up mountain.

otherwise this french bloke is going to think we're all soft.

Don't worry I'm soft too

 

[Travis22]

hey all, so I've offered to go along with Pierrick since I've never ridden the Epic and I'm keen. Our very tentative plan is to head up on the Sunday night 7th of Jan, stay in Mansfield then shuttle up to Buller and ride down. Shuttles don't run on the Monday so I've emailed asking if they'll do a one off service for us and they also hire MTBs at their shop in Mansfield so might do a package for us. Any other Rotorburners want to come along for the drive? I've got a fairly comfy station wagon and a 3 bike rack so could potentially take 2 more for the price of shared petrol (all dependent on a shuttle being possible).

Shuttles from Mirimbah run every day until the 14th Jan.

Travis.

 

[NUTTTR]

2851m of climbing is a shit load, even those of us who might get to 1000m in a days riding will be shattered. Energy replenishment would be critical

That is pretty epic... Sure those numbers are right?? That sounds like way too much climbing

 

[Mattyp]

57.5km and 2776m climbing for me.... near enough

 

[Duane]

Waste of kms on the road. 65kms if you add Mysty and stonefly loop then back up stonefly to Stirling summit. Plenty of climbing without bat shit boring road...if climbing is your thing. Not really mine.

 

[link1896]

Waste of kms on the road. 65kms if you add Mysty and stonefly loop then back up stonefly to Stirling summit. Plenty of climbing without bat shit boring road...if climbing is your thing. Not really mine.

Got a log of this you can share? Strava, map my ride, trailsforks?

 

[Duane]

Got a log of this you can share? Strava, map my ride, trailsforks?

I wish. I bailed. I'm too fat and unfit. Mates did it last season.

 

[kbekus]

So just to close this loop off, Pierrick rocked up via Uber at 4ish on Sunday and we left for Mansfield straight away. Stopped for a burger at the pub then took a wrong turn meaning our drive up to Buller took about an hour 15 though we made it *just* in time to witness the sunset from the summit.

Checked in to SkiLib for the night and got settled in to be woken half way through the night by a violent thunderstorm. Dreading the idea of riding all day in the pissing rain I finally drifted off back to sleep to wake up a bit groggy around 7am (earliest I've been up by about 3 hours this holidays).

Got up, got ready, packed our shit away and headed down to ATC under a cloudy sky to pick up the hire bike. While sorting out the paperwork the helpful dudes at ATC strongly suggested we don't ride the Epic because there was a bushfire in close proximity to the final descent thanks to that thunderstorm last night bummer. So we choose instead to ride up to Sterling via Stonefly and see what our options are. Just as we're about to leave it a: starts pissing down and b: we're told the Epic is formally closed due to said bushfire.

We wait 5 minutes for the rain to pass and head out via Gang Gangs and other tracks, up Stonefly (what a magnificent bastard that climb is) and we go right up to the north summit on Sterling where it's windy as fuck (I reckon 50+km/h winds) and there's a darkly ominous sky north of us. We scamper back down and almost immediately we're sheltered from the winds but it starts to rain with furious abandon so we leg it down Sterling and get onto the Stonefly descent where again we're sheltered from the weather. I really enjoyed that descent though honestly it would have been about 10 times more awesome I reckon if it could have been about half as steep and 4 times as long.

We take the Circuit road down to the bridle trail and then the Delatite which is running well despite a flood a few weeks back.. the lower section is a touch dusty so didn't get any of the rain from the previous night. We finish up at the park (duh, of course) and thinking I'm home and hosed when I have my worst brain fart for the ride and run straight into the back of Pierrick at about 30km/h... I locked the front, went OTB and smacked him in the back with the crown of my helmet. sigh.

anyway, ripper ride. We grabbed a coffee while we waited for the shuttle and based in the pleasure of a really good day out on the bike. I'm bummed I missed the Epic but I'll get it one day and let's face it, the Delatite is hardly a shit way to end a ride. Back up the mountain on the bus the rain started to absolutely hammer down just as we reached the car park and went hard for about 3 minutes. We chilled in the bus waiting and when the rain abated we dropped the hire bike off and got dropped off back up at SkiLib. The awesome thing about this lodge is that you can use the facilities even when you've checked out so we had a quick shower, packed our shit and headed back to Melbourne via a quick bite in Yea.

Great day riding, thanks Pierrick for being the motivation behind a sneaky day trip away.

 

[John U]

Top stuff. You’re an excellent bloke for taking a visiting mountain biker on a road trip like that. Well done.