Back a couple of months ago in March, hall of fame mountain biker Hans Rey and freestyle mountain biker Tyler McCaul met up at and old mining town in Tasmania called Derby that is on the brink of coming back thanks to bikers. The desolated town needed revitalization and mountain bikers seem to be coming to the rescue by way of a new trail center developed in the remote town. With the trail system dubbed Blue Derby, it aims to be Australia’s first true mountain biking town. The trail system boasts some of the best purpose-built mountain bike trails in the world and form the backbone for what is shaping up to be an excellent biking destination. Watch Rey & McCaul hot the trails after the break, plus get some more of the story behind the trails…
For the uninitiated, Tasmania is an island of the southeast coast of Australia, and while it is about the same size as Missouri or Oklahoma (#20 & 21 US states by size), but has just a half a million inhabitants making it pretty sparsely populated. That means there’s plenty of room to build trails, and that’s exact what’s been going on with Glen Jacobs of World Trail crafting a flowing trail network that brings smiles to riders’ faces no matter how experienced they are.
The video above by Jason Macalpine of Anakt films gives a good look at the new trails and got us excited about riding out own home trails for the weekend. But if you want to know more, there is also a longer 10+ minute video below that tells more of the story of Derby, and what and why they’ve done to bring the town back to life with trails and mountain bikers.
As the sign says when you roll into town “historic past – exciting future.”
