Last weekend I was lucky enough to travel to Victoria with 9 (4 from Hobart, 4 from Launceston and 2 mainlanders) other mountain bike mad women for 3 days of riding, eating, more riding, laughing, talking and even more riding. The retreat was organised by MTB Skills Australia instructor Su Sprott from Hobart and Jess Douglas 3x world 24 hour Solo MTB champion and all round amazing person. Jess and her husband Norm are the founders of MTB Skills Australia and have courses in most states of Australia. I participated in a women’s fundamentals course in Hobart last November and found it really beneficial so when the Forrest weekend popped up on facebook I jumped on it and was the first woman registered and deposit paid!

Day 1 Friday 21st March

I was up at 4.30am after a surprisingly restful night and off to pick up Liz a fellow rider who was coming along as well.We lumbered into the terminal with our bike bags and luggage in plenty of time for a coffee. We met up with Marie-Louise and Traci who were on the same flight as us, I was a little starstruck as Traci is an Australian XC MTB Champion and although a year older than me she is incredibly fit and I was actually a bit unsure why she was coming along to a skills course.

After arriving in Melbourne before schedule and having another coffee we met up with the remaining girls and the MTB Skills crew, Jess,Norm and Kylie. We had to literally throw our bikes and bags into a van under the glare of a grumpy traffic warden who didn’t want us hanging around and then threw ourselves into a mini bus and took off.

Waiting for Hobartians to show up.

The plan was to drive to Lara about an hour from Melbourne and have some late breakfast/early lunch before heading to the You Yangs Regional Park about 20mins down the road for an afternoon of riding and then continuing on to Forrest. Norm and bike mechanic Cathie left us at Lara and drove the van to the MTB park so they could get a head start in putting 10 partially dismantled bikes together!!

The You Yangs has 50kms of trails of which we rode 35kms in about 3.5 hrs. We work shopped a rather large rock with Jess instructing us on how to approach it and go over it which we all did successfully. We rode for another hour or so before splitting into 2 groups as some of the fitter more skilled girls wanted to tackle a tricky black diamond route which I was happy to miss and keep riding on the easier stuff (the 4.30am start wa staring to catch up with me) .Eventually we met up with them and made our way back to the bus and a well earned snack. Just as we were removing our front wheels and taking pedals off so the bikes could fit back into the van it started to rain and by the time we drove out of the car park it was pouring, we were so lucky it held off.

Group shot at You Yangs

Traci Lonergan and the rock we sessioned.

The 90min trip to Forrest was quite subdued as we were all well and truly knackered. Forrest is a sleepy little place surrounded by lush bush and only 32kms inland from the Great Ocean Road. It’s also a MTB Mecca. We settled into The Church Retreat and devoured the snacks that were waiting for us, chose our beds and shared 3 bathrooms between 11 women. Tea that night was at the Forrest Brewing Company just a 5min walk from our accommodation, it was probably a 5min walk from anywhere in Forrest come to think of it. After a great meal we retired to the retreat for a cup of tea and bed, completely exhausted.

Our home for the weekend.

The odd Evoc bike bag.

Tea at the Forrest Brewery.

Some of our bikes (Rocky is over the back)

Link to You Yangs Regional Park info.

http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/explore/parks/you-yangs-r.p./things-to-do/mountain-bike-riding

This is a You Tube video of some of the track we did with some very fun jumps. It’s not us riding just some footage I found.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN1lq_VeeO8