Maydena Bike Park: Tasmania’s Whistler
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Tasmania has been quietly ramping up its MTB networks for several years and is now set to launch itself into the stratosphere of mountain biking with the opening of Maydena Bike Park, a short drive from the capitol, Hobart.
Over 10 years ago the Tasmanian State Government wanted to create more tourist locations, on the list was Maydena. A once booming forestry town, it was left to ruin with no development and no tourist attractions. They decided to build the Eagles Eyrie a top the 820m high mountain located directly behind the town, equipped with cafe and panoramic 360 degree view of Tasmania’s alpine region.
After short success, it failed to bring in continuous tourists and ended up falling into ruin like the rest of the town. Years past and while it seemed the town was set to just sit in exile a Hobart bloke by the name of Simon French was busy planning what could eventually become of this.
With the string of successes his trail building company Dirt Art was experiencing there was no-one more suited to turn this failed tourism venture into a mega mountain bike park.
Fast forward through lots of master plans, meetings and head aches later, and around August of 2017 the first trail crew set their shovels and excavators in the dirt. The park is opening on January 26th 2018 to a sold out 300 riders, who will experience 20 freshly built trails ranging from beginner flow trails, to double black diamond. Every trail will land back into the slope style course (very similar to Whistler) and then lead back to the hub where two pump tracks have been constructed, along with beer garden, cafe and bike work shop.
