Mount Beauty in Australia is a must visit for Mountain Biking

If you've only been riding mountain bikes for a few years, the small Victorian town of Mount Beauty Australia probably doesn't mean much to you. A good day for walking or hiking on a long trip to the well-known towns of Bright and Falls Creek, perhaps. A growing number of young Victorian downhill runners know it's an unforgiving race on the state's calendar. The truth is that mountain biking at Mount Beauty has a rich and fascinating history and played a major role in the growth years of our sport in Australia.

Why Visit Mount Beauty Australia?

• Includes one of the best Victorian High Country songs
• Over 40km of singletrack hand built by local people
• Visit local cafes, pubs and breweries
• Make it a road trip: visit Bright, Falls Creek and the surrounding areas

After spending the months following the Melbourne shutdown going back and forth, I moved to Mount Beauty Australia in late Spring 2022. Access to long backcountry rides really cemented my desire to live in this small town, and it's that same sense of exploration and adventure. in the mountains that led the first pioneers of mountain biking in Australia to start looking for and building new places to ride in the early 90s. Pioneers like Bernie McArdle.

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'Wherever the trailhead carpark and barbeque area are now, they all used to be paddocks. We had a bit of a fence that we could use to get over the Pole Track, and we just started exploring from there,' said Bernie of the origins of the Big Hill climb.

Big Hill is an understatement, really, about hill names. If you're on the road or in the town of Mount Ebuhleni itself, you could be forgiven for asking, 'which climb?' But move a little to the other side of the pondage in the middle of the city, and you can see the top. At 1385m, Big Hill sits just over a thousand meters above the city, still 600m shy of Mount Bogong, also visible from the city. A long history of hydroelectric infrastructure and cattle grazing on even higher plateaus facilitated a network of access roads, logging roads, and bridleways that traversed the Big Hill, and this allowed early cyclists to find their way up and up. Many of these original tracks are still used by riders today.

'We used to walk and push up the Big Hill Firetrail or the road (the Big Hill road is still used to enter the cabins today) until we got to the logging road about a thousand meters. From there, we would bomb the fire station and go in below the cattle lane.'

This is the ride I take every time from my house. On a comfortable titanium hardtail with 130mm Pike and 2.5” rubber, it's still stiff and loose. I replaced a set of old two piston XT brakes recently as they weren't cutting it on these types of standard descents.

'We used to kill bikes down there, that's for sure. You will be pulling on the brakes with all your might and not much is happening! Once we started getting suspension bikes, it got easier, but those old forks took the edge off the big hits.'

Popular trails at Mount Beauty

• The last Dip
• The Kraken
• Banana
• Rolling Stones
• Wombat's song
• Gully Track
• Nirvana

'That was one of the great things about starting to create a single. It was great fun, but you'd also slow down and cook a few rims.'

READ: A Victorian High Country Road Trip

That original singletrack is, for the most part, still played today. If you jump on the Trailforks, you can clearly see the Big Hill Downhill marked in red within the extensive Big Hill network. Almost five and a half kilometers long and dropping six hundred and fifty metres, the Big Hill DH remains one of the most accessible mountain-specific descents in Australia. It's certainly not the most sophisticated, mechanical way you'll find in neighboring areas of Victoria's High Country. But if you want to relive or discover for the first time what mountain biking was all about, then the Big Hill DH and its mix of wide doubletrack and rumored, green singletrack will make for an amazing morning out.

The growth of mountain biking in Australia

With the distance and elevation figures I just listed, it's no surprise that Big Hill DH hosts some of Australia's first and most popular downhill races. It's been great to see South Australia's Volatile Visions recently started adding some of their old footage to social media, but I think my first experience of Mount Beauty Australia was probably from a Volatile VHS tape in the late nineties.

'I don't know if you can write about those things,' said Bernie with a laugh when I asked about the scene of the infamous post-race party, no doubt inspired by legendary Australian downhill legends. Riders like Chris Kovarik, Scott Sharples, and Michael Ronning have trained skills on the Big Hill that will take them to factory team rides, World Cup stages, and set them up as role models for future generations of Australian mountaineers. I'm told that they were VERY well behaved at the former West Peak Hotel, now Mountain Monk Brewery.

READ: The 5 Best Genealogies of the Victorian High Country

Turns out those future generations of Mount Beauty riders weren't far behind, and they were really fast.

When I first met Liam Panozzo, I saw that last name and immediately thought he was going to ride at a speed and usually at a distance from the ground that I wouldn't be comfortable trying to match. I empathize with the Mount Beauty visitor who meets Liam out on the trails, chats, and accepts Liam's adorable and instantly lovable gift of friendship to show them. 'What a fortunate meeting,' I imagine them muttering to each other as they continue to brutalize the double black diamond Honeysuckle for the first time behind their new friend. Hold on, tourist, you're about to descend in five seconds, ride a helicopter, or if you're lucky and can catch yourself, see something amazing!

Liam's parents, Peter and Bonnie, were part of the original Mount Beauty team, and along with Bernie and others, were the founders of the Team Mount Beauty club we know today. With a growing and challenging trail network at their doorstep and some obvious genetic advantages, the Panozzo kids became a force to be reckoned with on the Australian downhill and on the world stage. A quick browse on the internet will easily inform you that my older brother Joel rode to 4th place at the UCI Downhill World Championships in Les Gets in 2004, after taking 6th the previous year in Lugano. It's also easy to find that Liam got 3rd place at the 2005 Junior World Champs in Livigno. What the internet won't tell you, however, are the top stories of the moment.

Mount Beauty today

From Bernie and Liam's stories alone, we can easily make an entire AMB issue of routes, events, and bikes related to gear for the first days of cycling at Mount Beauty, and it can be a big deal. Maybe I'll throw it away. The short story, however, is that from those early beginnings, sports and a trail network emerged. A love of riding breeds a love of trail building, as a mountain biker often does with access to land, tools, and some free time. You can still see Bernie's car parked at the top of the network on weekday afternoons, no doubt looking for some small feature or another. An activity that benefits all Big Hill climbers, locals and visitors alike.

READ: The Best Cemetery Cycle Routes in the Victorian High Country

I was lucky enough to live less than a hundred meters from the top of Mount Beauty. Weekends are busy and quiet, especially given the events, and there is a constant rush of commuters on the bike path from the city early in the morning, heading to the trails to get ready before work. You know who I see riding the most, though? Bernie.

'I just got this for my 70th birthday, actually,' Bernie explains of his sharp new Trek Fuel EXe.

'It's been great, and it's really opened up the park and allowed me to ride things I don't usually have time for.' And this strikes me as a really good thing for e-bikes in the life of the trail network.

I'm not an e-bike hater, but I'm more than happy to ride a 120km day from Mount Beauty up into the high plains, and I don't think there's ever been a better one than I can personally put on an e. -owning the bike myself.

'The condition of the park is much better as e-bikes become more popular,' said Team Mount Beauty team president Carly Emond.

'The trail network is huge, and it's not the kind of trails that were dug with an excavator. People were digging by hand with a shovel and a pickaxe, and without traffic on top of them, the forest is usually quick to take them back.

'The take-up of mountain bikes means that many routes that people would ride once in a new moon are now being ridden regularly and there are always runs inside. We are a small club, and all our routes are built. and is maintained by volunteers. It was great to see how little we have to do on some of the less popular routes these days.'

Restaurants in Mount Beauty

Check out the Rocky Valley Bikes cafe for lunch and a milkshake on their beautiful patio, or swing by Grass Valley for a delicious pizza and maybe a cocktail for dinner. There is also a small bakery in town and there is often a food truck at one of the pubs.

Drinking places at Mount Beauty

Crank Handle brewery serves great beers and amazing curly fries on their large patio with Mount Bogong Views. Mountain Monk Brewers in the former West Peak Hotel has a sprawling beer garden.

Places to get your bike repaired in Mount Beauty

Rocky Valley Bikes has a small workshop to take care of minor repairs, but for major repairs, you'll need to go to one of the more specialized MTB shops in Bright. Alpine Outfitters attached to the Mount Beauty post has an amazing selection of Maxxis tires, tubeless tape, and sealant, as well as gloves, helmets, and riding helmets, and it's worth a look.