Last week, Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA), announced the schedule for the upcoming 2016 Australian XCM Championships in Derby, Tasmania. In 2014, MTBA committed to holding the race in Derby for two consecutive years. Last year, the rugged course on the Blue Derby trail crowned Brendan Johnston and Jenny Blair as Australian National Champions.
In 2016, much of the event schedule remains the same – with elite racing to take place on Sunday 10th April, and age group and shorter distances to race on Saturday. Given the huge volume of singletrack in the race, this keeps bottlenecks at a minimum, and reduces the chance of course traffic affecting the result.
Last year, the course was based on a 30km lap of the Blue Derby trails, with a 10km start loop preceeding the two lap elite women’s race. There are no further details on the course for 2016, but the likelihood is that it will take a very similar path, utilising the dirt road climb out of Derby and the purpose built singletrack on offer. Although there has been new trail developments, much of that is away from the main trail centre and not conducive to a lap based marathon race.
As the event is run in conjunction with the Blue Derby trails organisation, their site should hold further updates. In the mean time, you can enter here.
Blue Derby XCM. Photo: Oliver King