58 AMB
VANLIFEMAD ABOUT MAYDENA
If you have seen our last two issues you will have
read a couple of Places That Rock features from
Maydena Bike Park, looking at the Wilderness
Trail and also Regnans Ride. Both are on the
moderate or beginner end of the spectrum at
Maydena Bike Park. From the outset that’s never
been the core of what Maydena Bike Park has
been all about, but they actually have plenty of
trails to suit intermediate riders and some for
beginners. The hill at Maydena is imposing. You
can’t even see the top from the bottom but be
assured the summit is 820m above where you are
standing. You’re in the south west of Tasmania.
It’s wild. It’s rugged. The trails are predominantly
steep and demanding. And park manager Rhys
Ellis wouldn’t want it any other way.
“It’s a giant hill, and a steep hill. Part of the
trails here are just based on getting down the hill.
Australia is undergoing a transition in riding style,
from a far more cross-country based riding style.
If you rode the valley in Whistler or a blue trail
in Squamish you’d have no problem riding here.
But Australia is catching up with more of a global
sense of trail standards. It’s a bit subjective, but
Maydena riding is super fun and that’s what we
intend to keep doing. We’re going to continue to
make sick trails that are fun to ride.”
Shuttling is at the heart of mountain biking in
Maydena Bike Park, and while you can pay a low
entry cost to use the climbing trail and therefore
access all the trails from Midline down, you’re
burning a whole lot of time and energy which you
could be spending exploring the range of the trails
that Maydena has to offer. We rode the climbing
trail once, and ticked it off the list. Tim took the
BMC Trailfox AMP eMTB so clearly he found it a
bit easier, but it did chew some battery life. It’s a
hard climb!
When we visited Maydena Bike Park in March
it was cold and wet when we first arrived – and
sunny with hero dirt the next day. It had been
snowing a couple of days before we arrived.
Ellis explains that’s a pretty good example of the
Tasmanian environment.
“In the middle of summer we had to shut one
day because of a bush fire, and within one week
we had to shut again because of snow. That’s what
HIT THE ROAD TO THE TRAILS
With the 2nd round of the Enduro World
Series (EWS) landing at Blue Derby in late
March 2019, and plenty of updates to the
trail network at Maydena Bike Park since
we first visited, it seemed like the perfect
opportunity to travel south to the Apple
Isle for a little over a week of mountain
biking, travel, and some race reporting and
spectating. Whether it’s because we left
booking accommodation late or we loved the
idea of it – we opted to book a campervan for
the trip. We’d need a car anyway, and this
way we could make like a snail and carry our
home for the week with us.
KORUMWEST