Derby MTB Trip 2025

 

Well, we managed to herd some cats and assembled five of us for a flight from Brisbane to Tasmania for our now annual March mtbing trip. It was almost touch and go this year as cyclone Alfred hit Brisbane in the days before we were meant to leave. As it was, we only had power restored on the Sunday afternoon, then we flew out early Monday afternoon.

Arriving in Launceston with all of our bikes we grabbed two hire cars and hit the supermarket for a stock up. 

It was then on to Derby and our accommodation at the Lazy Queen Air BnB. 

Nice bush ummm....hedge. 

We were pretty beat so it was straight to bed. We will put the bikes together in the morning.

Once the bikes were together we pedaled the short distance to the shuttle pick up point.  No unnecessary pedalling uphill for us this trip! 

Up, Down, Around (UDA) shuttles was our company of choice.  We have found them to have the most regular uplifts during the day and the friendliest drivers.

After rain on the Monday afternoon the trails were in perfect condition - grippy as heck!

We did about six uplifts for the day with the last leading to a long pedal around the Dambusters trail to Troughty trail for the gun riders and Cuddles trail for Dan and I.

Dambusters 

Lunches were at the 2 Doors Down Cafe. It was a bit quiet for the first half of the week - which suited us just fine. 

Dinner at the Dorset Hotel finished a great first day.

Black Stump shuttle drop-off. 

Wednesday was more of the same until a thunderstorm decided to hit the town mid afternoon. 

Kingswall trail. 

 Dan and I retired to the pub for a cold one.......  

 

...while the others kept pedalling... and got their cold one in the form of a drenching. It also made the rock a tad slippery apparently.

It was a cold and gloomy walk to The Hub for dinner that night. Luckily it is only a 290 metre walk.

This necessitated some bike maintenance next day.

All good though as Derby trails handle the rain well and would be mint for the next day. 

Dinner tonight was at The Hub wood fired pizza place.  Great pizza washed down with excellent local Pinot Noir.  Mtbing does give you an appetite! 😉

There are some nice new accommodations in Derby these days. You don't necessarily need to opt for an old miners cottage.

More local riding was had on the Thursday before grabbing the big shuttle up to Blue Teir on the Friday for the trio of First 13, Blue Tier and Atlas trails.  

Blue Tier is like being on another planet.  The trail winds through mossy, tree fern lined gorgeous trail. (that I didn't photograph - apart from this growth on a tree fern.)

This was an epic day on the bikes with lunch at the self proclaimed "Worst Pub in Australia ", the Weldborough Hotel. There was a large group of dirt bikers in the parking area, who had also stopped in for lunch during their guided tour. That looked like fun too.

I think the monika for the pub came from a moto journo in another century - before mtbing brought tourists and money to the town via the Blue Tier/Atlas trail run because it is certainly an awesome little pub with great food and beers these days! There must have been fifty or sixty people enjoying the beer garden with us.

Though we were cursing the huge steak sandwich as we pedalled off down Atlas though, what with our now over-full stomachs! No photos were taken due to the discomfort and fatigue we were starting to feel.

That was soon forgotten however as we finished the day with a big downhill run into Cuddles trail and it's huge rock drop off, again. 😎

Photos don't do the drop on Cuddles any justice. That rock is at least 10 metres high and near vertical! It's an awesome feeling to ride it and survive! I'm pleased to say I rode it a couple of times this year - last year was a big NO.

Shane at the bottom of the drop. 

We rolled into town knackered but very satisfied. 

We rode the Saturday morning - because why not? -  and polished off a trail I hadn't ridden yet this trip, Roxanne, which was quite challenging but also much more fun than last year due to some new works on it's upper section.

Shane on Roxanne. 

Yep, Roxanne is rocks and rocks and rox.......anne... 

Will om Roxanne. 

All packed up we headed to Scottsdale for a beer at the Little Rivers Brewery. Unfortunately they didn't have a very extensive menu so it was off to the Scottsdale bakery, just up the road for a mighty fine pie.

We also called in to the Whiskey distillery which is located very conveniently at the airport in one of the old freight hangers. I'm not a whiskey drinker but it was interesting to look at the old aviation nostalgia on display.

And so it was soon time to check in and jump on our flight home. Almost five days of riding some of the best trails in the country had been a blast and I count myself lucky to do it with a great crew of mates who make travelling away a pleasant experience. We may have only covered 170km but they were all high quality mountain biking kilometres.

Cheers.

A Welcome Break

 A mate (Shane) and I managed to get away recently for a few days mountainbiking in Derby, Tasmania. This trip had been booked for a while so I left Steve to look in on Dad, shot home to Brisbane, packed up my bike and gear then jetted down to Launceston. It was nice to finally kick back on a plane knowing that we were going somewhere fun.

A friend of Shane's has a Prado stationed in Launny which he kindly let us borrow to get our bikes and gear the short distance across to Derby.

Only, we couldn't get accommodation in Derby for that first night. So we pulled up just short and stayed in the Lords Hotel in Scottsdale. It was a pretty clean little pub and made a great spot to stay. The next morning was a cracking, crisp, clear stunner.

Derby to the right.

Rolling into Derby literally the first person we saw was an old friend of Shane's - Glen Jacobs! Glen is from Cairns in Queensland but is the man behind World Trail. Actually, he is World Trail! World Trail built Derby's trails and put Derby on the world MTB map. After chatting for a bit he invited us to come ride with his crew this afternoon. Cool!

We quickly booked a shuttle for tomorrow morning to take us to the Top 13 of the Bay Of Fires trail as it had been highly recommended by many people, then we headed down to the trail head to put our bikes back together.

We decided to pedal ourselves up the hill for the first run. It was still a cracking day!

Not much further up the hill we came to the realisation that our fitness wasn't up to the job and very fortuitously we happened upon a shuttle van stopped on the side of the road. Shane rode up to the driver to say g'day and ask how the shuttles work when the driver said "g'day Shane!" He was an old mate that Shane used to race in BMX as a kid! Needless to say we spent the rest of our stay in Derby shuttling up the hill with Up Down Around shuttles. 

At the end of one of our runs down the hill we passed Jacob's crew going up the hill for their ride. We quickly shuttled back up the hill and managed to tag on just as they were pedalling off into the bush. The plan was Black Stump/Dambusters/Krushka's/Trouty trails in a big loop back to Derby township. Yikes!

Dambusters fireroad.

Rest stop with Glen and Shane at the Trouty entrance.

Trouty isn't a trail that I would choose to ride for myself. It is very steep and extremely rocky in places - well above my skill level but I am glad I did it as the views across Derby were pretty cool. I could always walk down the stupidly steep, gnarly bits too.

Why is the trail called Trouty I hear you ask? Well, there is a huge split rock granite boulder that looks like the head of a trout coming out of the hillside. It has been painted up accordingly

Trouty is one of the trails that get raced during the Derby round of the Enduro World Series. Here is what it looks like from the seat of a bike whose pilot can actually ride a bit....(I love how he was coaching himself toward the bottom)

I was happy just to get down in one piece. 

Happy to get back to the cottage that would be home base for the next few days and to stoke the fire up.

We were located right across the paddock from the pub!

2023 Derby was a much more mature place than 2017 Derby. There were numerous eateries to keep us fuelled up as well as numerous bike shops if we needed any repairs. Of course, Shane knew the owners of the Derby Bike Shop so we were sorted if we had any issues. We picked up a coffee each morning and had lunch at Two Doors Down cafe' each day. The food was good which kept us coming back.

Two Doors Down.

Return To Sender trail.

Return To Sender. (sorry about the poor quality - it is a screen grab from a slo mo video)

Mark from Up Down Around shuttles.

Kingswall Trail with Shane and Damo from Derby Bike Shop.

Not all the trails are granite boulders. Most are actually wide, smooth and FAST! Shane can really ride having raced nation level BMX as a kid and proper downhill as a young adult.

Air Ya Goin trail is steep, smooth and FAST! Shane hit the jumps and drops and was having a ball. Needless to say we did this trail a heap of times.

Launch.

Mid flight.

Touching down.

I mentioned above that we organised a shuttle for the Top 13 trail on our second day. We did this with Vertigo shuttles and they were pretty regimented and seemed nowhere near as accommodating as UDA. (didn't know about the awesome UDA shuttles at that stage🙄)

It is quite a long shuttle drive up to the trail head where you can head west on the iconic Blue Tier trail or east on the Bay of Fires trail. We had been advised by multiple people to not bother with Blue Tier as it is very pedally these days and that we MUST do Top 13. 

Righto - who were we to argue?

Smiles galore. Top 13 for the win!

The deal here was that we needed to cover the first 13 kilometres (8miles) in one hour to meet the shuttle to then be shuttled back up to do the last 7 kilometres of the Top 13 (got that?!😁) Not knowing how long it would take or how difficult the trail would be we all took off at race pace! I didn't stop to take a single photo despite the amazing views just before we dropped into the forest. Luckily Shane stopped for one!

Looking toward the east coast.

My only stop, 2km in, was for "comfort". Riders were piling up, catching their breath.

So bumpy that my watched vibrated through my arm but sooo much fun! 

Top 13 is a MUST DO.

Back in Derby we grabbed some lunch at Two Doors Down cafe' (again)  before normal programming was resumed. 

Shuttle up the hill, blast down, then repeat.

Kingswall trail.

Some post ride beers were enjoyed at The Dorset Hotel. 

As you can see Derby is a happening place....😄

Little Rivers 23 Stitches Pale Ale on tap. Mmmmmm......😋

Our final day took in a couple of trails we hadn't ridden yet. This one was named because the build crew reported back that the new trail they were building was rock and rocks and rocks and rocks...... Roxanne was born!

Blue Derby really is THE place to mountainbike in Australia. It has a huge network of trails and those trails suit a wide variety of rider skills. 

Some are very family friendly while others will test the best riders in the world - hence Derby's inclusion on the Enduro World Championship calendar again this year. In fact, we were there just two weeks before the Derby round so the trails were in tip-top condition for our visit.

Looking over a beer to the Dorset hotel.

It also has a wider variety of dining options with all that we sampled being excellent. The Hub and The Dorset Hotel being our two favourites.

Our air bnb, Riders Hut, proved to be a great place to stay. It was a bit of a pedal up the hill 😳 but well worth it. It was extremely well presented with new linen in the bedrooms, new cutlery in the kitchen, a fireplace with plenty of firewood and instant hot water in the showers (important for soft QLDers in a cold climate 😄)

We didn't do a massive amount of riding distance wise - only 138km over 5 days - but pretty much all of the riding was high quality and intense.

Packed up and heading for home.

How good was it? Well, we are already planning for another visit later this year. 😎

Cheers.