Page 23 - AMB Freelist

fast track
ICONIC DESCENT LOST:
RIP MYSTIC DH
WORDS GEORGINA VON MARBURG
As is the nature of bike parks in pine plantations, trails grow and die with the logging cycle. At Mystic Bike Park in Bright, Victoria, sections of the pine forest are logged every few decades. If a trail lies within the vicinity of these sections, it will usually vanish from the map. Mystic DH, a venerated track in the history of Aussie downhill racing, has become the latest casualty of this inevitable cycle. The majority of the trail will be logged in early 2022, so it’s a fitting time to pay homage to this iconic descent.
On a hill strewn with steep chutes and jarring root mazes, Mystic DH is by the far the steepest and most jarring of them all. It’s dusty and loose to race in the dry, and terrifying to race in the wet. Pete Varley, a Bright local, (re)built the track as we know it over several years. “The track hadn’t been used for over 20 years, so I needed original track builder Mark McDougall to find the old track. My aim was to make it top to bottom singletrack to give my son Aiden a local track to train on.” But it became so much more than a local training ride, going on to host many National Downhill Championships and numerous state
rounds.
While it’s sad to lose this hallowed
track to forestry, building a bike park in a pine plantation has its perks, and perhaps more so than anywhere else. Of course, motivated individuals need to navigate the approval process which involves various stakeholders, including the plantation owners and local council. But what makes Mystic so unique is the relative ease by which new trails can be built; the approval process is readily available online and walk-throughs are organised through the local cycling club. “Mystic is the easiest place to build legal trails in Australia,” says Alpine Cycling Club member and amateur trail builder Dom Geoghegan. “That’s why I moved here!”
With this in mind, it’s unsurprising to hear plans for a new Mystic DH. As the bottom section will remain intact, the aim is to route a new top section to join it. At the time of writing, a walk-though had been conducted to scout this potential revival. So watch this space, and in the meantime, be sure to (safely) enjoy the original trail before it closes on February 21st, 2022.
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