In comparison, Railton is a veritable metropolis with 997 residents, although that census was done five years later.

In the space of a fortnight, these two sleepy settlements - which ABC programmers politely call Back Roads but the less tactful might dismiss as backwaters - are doing phenomenal jobs of putting themselves, and especially their state, on the map.

Railton, whose two claims to fame, according to Wikipedia, are as the "Town of Topiary" and being home to a Cement Australia plant which began operations in 1923, hosted the finish of the Oceania Road Cycling Championship road races over the weekend.

That puts Foster Street in the same category as the Champs Elysees, albeit with less rioting.

At the end of the month, Derby, whose Wikipedia page mentions the Briseis Dam burst tragedy in 1929 and branch railway line from Launceston to Herrick, will again host mountain biking's Enduro World Series.

Tasmanian involvement in continental or world events is not exactly extensive. The state struggles even to get national recognition in most sports, although that's a subject for countless future columns.

That puts Derby alongside such equally exotic locations in Portugal, Italy, Canada, the US and Switzerland. Word is they can't stop going on about Trouty and Return To Sender in Whistler.

But these two cycling events are sharing some of the state's best kept secrets with an international audience.

Suddenly, the delights of the Bridle Track Road between Stoodley and Kimberley and the chute on Blue Derby's Detonate trail are being viewed by more than the occasional passing wedge-tailed eagle.

The EWS director is a jovial Scot named Chris Ball who found a canny way of summing it all up with that jovial Scottish accent of his.

"If we could bottle up Blue Derby with its extensive trail network and great Tasmania hospitality we would sell it to the world, it would make our jobs so much easier," Ball said.

Despite being a regular visitors to the planet's many other mountain bike hotspots, the EWS has only included Australia twice, and both times it's been Derby.

This serves to suggest both how good Blue Derby is and how annoyed the mainland's numerous mountain bike destinations must be.

Meanwhile last weekend's Oceania road titles were the second of three to be staged in Tasmania with the state's cycling body proclaiming on the other side of this very sheet of paper (apologies to those on the website) that they would like to prolong that mutually-beneficial relationship.

In contrast to the demand to host the EWS, other states seem to see the Oceania titles as an unnecessary financial burden.

However, Cycling Tasmania look beyond the money to the exposure, and why shouldn't they?

Riders from Australia, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Guam, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Tahiti familiarised themselves with Merseylea, many seeking to represent their country at this year's world championships in Great Britain as well as secure qualifying points for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Meanwhile athletes from 25 countries are set to test the capacity of the Cascade Dam Road in Derby as part of a seven-month long global series visiting eight different countries across three continents.

This is international exposure that money can't buy.

The action-packed one-minute Youtube highlights package of the EWS's last visit to Derby has had 29,243 views. Well, 29,244 after I watched it again researching this.

Even without my input, that's more than 100 times the town's last recorded population.

It seems 96-year-old cement plants and derelict branch railway lines are all in the past.

The present and future for these places is in cycling and Tasmania stands to win just as much as whoever gets to the finish line first.