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.

Border Ranges Ride

 So with the Ducati finally all set up (well, pretty much) with accessories and having had it’s first service I took the opportunity to get her out on a multi surface spin. I planned a quick 300 odd kilometre loop through the border ranges on Gaia GPS, despite rain being predicted for the afternoon.

I wanted to be able to explore any other roads while down there, on a whim, so I topped up with fuel at Tamborine. Probably not strictly necessary but better to be safe, eh?

Out through Beaudesert and on to Rathdowny for a coffee. Another cracking morning in south east Queensland!

I took the Lions Road south out of Rathdowny. Clearly they have had plenty of rain in this part of the world as it was bright green grass everywhere I looked. Cloud wrapped over some of the hills that flanked the road making for spectacular scenery.

Some sections were more spectacular than others.

Climbing up to the border crossing I was soon in the bottom of the cloud and getting covered in dewy, misty precipitation. The road gets very twisty here and I was interested to see how the Pirelli Scorpions would feel in the wet. Now, while it wasn’t driving rain, the road was thoroughly wet and I am pleased to say the tyres gripped exceptionally well. I pushed it a bit hard just to be sure and apart from some rear abs activation while braking hard into some corners they were absolutely rock solid.

I turned up Simes road at Grady’s Creek to begin the climb to Tweed Range road but after a few kilometres it became obvious that it was going to be very wet up there. Having a brand new bike that was shod with road oriented rubber, it wasn’t a situation that I wanted to be in. With the escarpment located inside a cloud this morning there would be absolutely no view and I was intending to ride up there as much for the view as for the ride.

So, I backtracked and got onto Forest Road, then Lynch’s Creek road to head back out to the Summerland Way at Wiangaree and on to Kyogle. The rain soon stopped and the road dried up as I descended so I was happy with my choice.

I rode straight through Kyogle and out the Uki road. The road was dry and I enjoyed hooking through the traffic free twisties. I was impressed with how well my Africa Twin handled on the winding roads but this Ducati is next level on the black stuff. The highly muffled exhaust note belies how wickedly fast the engine pushes you from bend to bend!

I turned left into Link road at Wadeville to enjoy some quiet dirt across to Tweed Range road. Yep, I wasn’t giving up on the dream of taking in that view just yet!

The road was damp here but that just made for great traction. In fact, these tyres were proving to be pretty damn good. That was until I started hitting patches of wet clay. They weren’t super-slimy but I could feel the bike moving around a bit now. Stopping at the location below for a “comfort stop” a car coming the other way wound it’s window down and said in a slightly pissed off tone “the roads closed up there”. Hmmm, interesting. 🤔 So I wouldn’t have got through from the other end and I won’t go much further from here anyway. So, I turned around and enjoyed the ride down the hill to the Uki road again. This is why I wanted a full tank of fuel because you never know where you might have to go.

I wasn’t on the black stuff for long though as I soon turned off at Mt Burrell onto Cadel road. This took me through Mebbin National Park which is on the western side of Mt Warning. I have done some mountain bike races here in the past and I did feel some familiarity with bits of the forest. Of course, on the mtb you can duck past the gates that block many an interesting fire trail. Today I contented myself with cruising through and getting to know my bike/tyre combination with nary a soul to disturb me.

Cutters Campground was very familiar. Many a muddy mtb race was started from this point!🙄

I cruised into Tyalgum for lunch at the General store - even though I am only a lowly captain 😜.

They do great fresh food here and I enjoyed a simple, fresh sandwich and an iced coffee milk while swinging my legs like an 8 year old.

Things went a bit south from here as I noticed a number of missed calls from the neighbours who live either side of Dad, my wife and my little bro. 

Shit.

This can’t be good.

Returning the first neighbours call I found that Dad had had a little lie down on the carpet - for about 30 hours. Luckily we (Dad) have good neighbours who regularly check on each other. They called the ambulance and he was on his way to hospital at that very moment. Seems I had only missed those calls by about 5 minutes or so. 

I think I need a Cardo in both helmets.🤔

So, here I was, only 100ish kilometres from home but about 1000 bends in between. I jumped on the bike and hooked it for home. Once I got onto the Advancetown road things slowed up a bit as it had rained and the road was thoroughly wet. Riding into Nerang I began to become concerned as lightning bolts began to rain down. Needing fuel I ducked into the 7-11 at Nerang to top up and wait the storm out.

This is what the radar looked like….

I had several chats with bike owners (who were in their cars) about the weather with one guy showing me a photo a friend had just sent him from Beaudesert showing a massive cell that was green looking!

 Shit!

Checking the radar again and events were evolving rapidly! 45 minutes had elapsed and checking the radar it looked even worse! (Yes, I was under that big red bit under “Nerang”)

I was stuck at the servo until the weather cleared but the silver lining here was I got to make a stack of phone calls to Steve, my wife, the neighbours to generally sort some shit out. 

I eventually decided “fcuk it” and rode out into the weather. I got absolutely soaked by a massive downpour and can safely say that the Pirelli Scorpion tyres on the Duke can walk on water!

313km for the day through some magic countryside proved that this bike was the right choice. I am trying not to be a “fan boy” but can I just say that I am quietly impressed. 😎

Thankfully, I have an awesome brother who also cares about our parents too and he dropped everything to head straight out to see Dad. I organised to drive the 1000km a few days later with Lucy and we are spending some important time with Dad. He isn’t out of the woods yet and at 82 and some change he might never be but at least we are here for him. 🤗

Despite planning with Gaia GPS maps I find Ride With GPS the perfect interactive mapping tool to post to the blog.

Cheers.

I needed a beer after today…….