they don’t hold back. 6 stages, 18 km and a whopping 1000 m elevation gain, matched by an equal, if somewhat more rapid, elevation loss, thanks to said 6 downhill stages. that makes for an exhausting morning.

here is something i overheard while queueing up for stage 3 (called red wine, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me): a gentleman, probably slightly younger than me, but definitely already starting in the 40+ category, outlined what he thought was today’s prevalent trail building philosophy. millennials, he explained, like their downhill easy, engaging, full of options (called features) and fun top to bottom. every single meter: they apparently quickly loose interest if their senses do not constantly receive a positive stimulus. the same goes for the uphills (if there has to be any, those are basically always tedious): easy, fun, exciting (but definitely not menacing) features every couple of meters. oh, and of course everyone gets a price at the end.

the south hobart trails are not ‘millennial’: they are rough, washed out, mostly hand hewn goat trails with minimum man made features. steep, rutted, cut up by tree roots and strewn with rocks, just like they used to be in the olden days (which may or may not be the golden days, depending on who you talk to). the tas gravity enduro series would probably also not receive the millennial seal of approval: it wasn’t easy, some trails were more challenging than what i would call ‘fun’, and only the top three in each class got on the podium. disappointingly there were no awards for participation either.

this is how it played out: completing the first three stages required riding (and pushing) up an unpleasantly steep fire road. twice! more than 200 m each time. getting to stages 4, 5 and 6, which were otherwise nicely strung together on a constant downward trajectory, meant riding what felt like half way up mt wellington (these days more often referred to as kunanyi).

close to 600 m of climbing. so much for earning our turns, we definitely earned them today. and nat made a few new friends: turns out there are only four girls in all of tassie who can and want to ride these trails, and who don’t know the meaning of caution (they literally don’t, as evidenced below).

it’s an elite group.