The track flows perfectly and has enough variety for those riders to get creative with their line choice. Photo: Katie Dunnįrom the shuttle drop off, you roll into the Chamouni Traverse 2-3 minute descent down, across then a short climb up to the next summit where you can head down either North Owen Descent (black rated) or the Long Spur (blue/black rated).ĭespite being a blue/black rated trail, the Long Spur has an average gradient of 14.6% over its 3.3 km length and to put it bluntly, this track is not Rocket Frog so bring your enduro bikes! Once you get the hang of the corners, the track speed will come naturally and you’ll be too busy having fun to realise that after five minutes of descending, you’ve still got another five minutes to go. You ride down the side of a mountain with exposed rock and small shrubbery making an amazing backdrop leading into the classic Dirt Art hair pin corners (if you’ve ridden Maydena, you’ll pick this place up really quick). The shuttles drop you at approximately 1200 m elevation where you are greeted with outstanding 360-degree views of the region from Cradle Mountain to the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park and luckily for us, we were the only ones on the hill riding that day.ĭirt Art have done an amazing job building these trails. The shuttle track can only be accessed through Roam Wild Tasmania due to its steep gradient and private access gate so make sure you to book in advance. We had arranged shuttles with Anthony from Roam Wild Tasmania, who gave us a tour and explained the history of the town and region. For now, the moonscape surrounds of exposed rock will remain the jaw dropping backdrop. The town has a long mining history and is still undergoing its rehabilitation process however, this process will take hundreds if not thousands of years to return to its natural state. Like Derby, Queenstown has decided to invest heavily in the tourism industry and in particular, mountain biking. Queenstown can be accessed via either Hobart or Launceston but for our recent trip, we drove approximately 4 hours from Hobart to Queenstown and were greeted with a very unique landscape that will stun any visitor. Katie Dunn & Nick Muggeridge spent a bit of time on two wheels down there and it looks set to be an epic location…….
Pre-pandemic, were you sick of having to spend a day traveling overseas to get your big mountain descent fix? Well, if you haven’t heard, Queenstown on the West Coast of Tasmania has been generating plenty of buzz with their epic mountain views and 35 km trail network on Mount Owen – built by Dirt Art.