For me, the long Easter weekends means four days of riding in and around Jamieson in Victoria’s High Country. It’s a three hour drive from Melbourne but Jamieson is definitely worth it! It’s got something on offer for everyone, weather you’re training for endurance racing (like me) or just wanna have some fun on the trails!
I have my three ‘standard’ training routes when I’m riding here, two of them start in the town, for the other on I often try to get a lift into Mansfield, about 36km from Jamieson, and then ride back.
If you’re training for a cross country enduro or marathon mountain bike race, you have to do some k’s so a good ride is the Jamieson to Woods Point road. The first 15km go slightly up and down on the bitumen until the Kevington pub where the dirt road begins. Between Kevington and Gaffneys Creek it’s a fast rolling gravel road with a few short, steep climbs and loose gravel that causes your rear wheel to loose grip every time you try to accelerate after negotiating a corner.
Once you’ve past Gaffneys Creek the climbing really starts. Still on the slippery gravel, the road takes you up higher into the High Country but it isn’t until you’ve past A1, the gold mining settlement, that the road gets narrower and super steep. There’s a section of a few kilometers that will get you gasping for air so I usually choose this part for some intervals. After about 45km you’ve reached the highest point of this ride, Frenchmans Gap, 1082m above sea level. Depending on how hard I pushed it on the way up, I turn back towards Jamieson of take the descent into Woods Point. I usually prefer the first option.
My second ride also starts from Jamieson but this time I take the Jamieson-Licola road. After following the Jamieson River valley for almost 10km, this ride will take you up to about 1100m above sea level. It a nice, gradual climb with a few downhill section to give your legs a chance to recover during the ride. If you bring a map with the High Country’s 4WD trails on it, you can explore the many tracks along this road, taking you to some super steep trails. Or you can follow on to the many signs that take you to the Jamieson River Fishing Trail but with the lack of telephone reception, it’s not unwise to bring one of your mates along.
I usually follow the main road to the top of Mt Sunday, about 35km out of Jamieson, and take some of the many 4WD trails that take you from and back to the main road. My favorite is Gallows Track, an incredibly steep track that takes you to Granny’s Flat campground by the Jamieson River. I tried riding Gallows Track uphill a few times but never managed to ride all the way up…
When you’re not in for an enduro training ride, you’ll like ride number three, Rifle Butts MTB park in Mansfield. It’s a busy road between Jamieson and Mansfield so I usually drive into Mansfield and park the car at the Rifle Butts car park next to the trails. The trails are the work of the Mansfield Mt Buller Cycling Club and during summer they organize Dirt Crits there every Monday.
Rifle Butts MTB Park is situated on a hill just outside of Mansfield and has plenty of very well marked mountain bike trails for riders of all abilities. The higher you ride up the hill, the more obstacles in the form of boulders, tree logs and bridges you’ll find. Just this morning, I went for a few laps on their XC course. It was pretty good, a nice way to train my mountain bike skills. I came off the bike on the descent called the’Rubbish Run’ on my first lap but I did manage to get a fairly quick lap in after that.
Roeland’s next race is the Wombat 100, where he will be racing with Subaru-MarathonMTB.com team mates Naomi Hansen and Mike Blewitt.