Home-made mountain bike trails turn spotlight on Osmaston

Some, like Penguin Mountain Bike Park, are managed by local clubs while others, like Maydena, are run as commercial enterprises.

Operating models can involve significant construction operations, often involving specialist trail-building companies like Dirt Art and World Trail.

And yet the venue for last Sunday's Tasmanian cross-country mountain bike championships was a network financed and built almost entirely by one man.

Chris Grantham was listed as Did Not Start in the super masters male category for 50-59-year-olds on the event's official results.

He had a good excuse for not lining up at the start.

But for him, the other 102 entrants across all age divisions would also have had DNS next to their names.

"I'm worn out - I could hardly do a lap," he said. "My legs are killing me."

In addition to his near-decade-long project to build the 11 kilometres of trails at his property, Grantham had spent the days leading up to the championships lovingly preparing the five-kilometre circuit which riders would use.

Pulling out of actually competing did have some benefits - he was then free to enjoy spectating and share the story of how the trails came about.

Grantham and his partner Astrid Ketelaar live at Osmaston - a sleepy, rural settlement tucked away under the Great Western Tiers south-west of Westbury, listed as having a population of 88 in the 2016 census.

Located at the furthest point of a dead-end road, their property is nothing short of idyllic with no shortage of unkempt bush and hilly terrain - perfect ingredients for the sport they both love.

The Tasmanian-born 55-year-old father-of-two takes up the story, interspersing his comments by yelling encouragement to passing riders, adding a mini-bio of each to assist less knowledgeable reporters.

"I've had the property for 12 years and started all this about eight or nine years ago," he explained.

"Originally, I built a little bit of technical track for Astrid, to teach her how to ride technical, slow-speed stuff. It was about half a kilometre.

"It actually started with the bushwalking club because they were looking for somewhere different to go and it sort of developed from there. I started building a bit more track. I wanted to build things that were different than most of the other places.

"With Astrid and myself both racing, we just wanted to try something different."

Teaming up with Chris Jenkins in Hobart, Grantham helped revive the Tasmanian mountain bike championships with the event's first reincarnation hosted by Hobart Wheelers/Dirt Devils MTB Club at Clarence Mountain Bike Park in 2016 when Ketelaar was among the category winners.

"I said I'd build a track for the state race in 2017," Grantham said. "That was probably the most technical track that I've built and we had the second renaissance of the state championships here.

"It's just sort of developed from there. We've gone on and I got to a stage where I bought an old excavator after all the original track was hand-made."

The network has since hosted several races and Launceston Mountain Bike Club had no hesitation bringing the state titles back there this year.

Race director Jamie Wise led a chorus of praise for the trails.

"It's an awesome location and perfect for this sort of racing," he said.

"It's great for spectators. There are plenty of opportunities to see multiple parts of the course as opposed to just riders popping in and out of bush all the time."

Commissaire Peter Girling added: "The great strength of this place is that there's so many options - it's such a spider web. You can reverse direction and everything. It would have to be the location with the most variable options in the state, no question.

"Chris has been at it for 10 years and it's continuously expanding and getting more varied and multi-faceted."

Grantham's handiwork includes some huge berms, a few jumping opportunities, plenty of tight, twisty, technical stuff, flowing, high-speed descents and some stunning signature features, the best of which - called Fork in Tree Bridge - involves an aerial platform which can also be ridden under.

All of which begs the question of where he learned how to do it, particularly as his day job is state operations manager for Coca-Cola.

"I'm completely self-taught. No experience at all," he said. "I just enjoyed it.

"And it's great to hear people's comments. The satisfaction I get out of it is actually seeing people enjoy riding the tracks and when they come back and say: 'That was awesome, something completely different.' The kids just love it.

"The best thing I get is when a national champion kid like Vinnie Manion says: 'These are the best berms, everything just flows.' But there are other bits of the track that are completely different. I built a new section up the hill for this year and also the new downhill track and that's really fast.

"Having that real variation is the key."

Sunday's championships attracted a top-quality elite field with Cam Ivory, Sam Fox, Alex Lack and Izzy Flint all having been national champions at different ages.

Grinning through a fresh coating of blackened dust, they were united in more glowing comments about the trails.

"It's a pretty flowy course," Lack said.

"It was really dusty but there's a fair bit of grip with less powdery stuff on top. It's a really good course. Not super-hilly but just good fun to ride."

Flint, who added the elite women's title to a resume dating back to the under-15 category at Clarence in 2016, added: "It was super dry and dusty but really good.

"This course does not suit me as much as the original one with all the techy stuff but it was nice to have some variation and to be able to showcase what Chris and Astrid have done here. I think I've ridden every race they've had here and I like it.

"My hat goes off to them. It's a beautiful property and they've immersed themselves in the mountain bike community and it's great for us to come out and experience what they've built."

Grantham - who spent much of Sunday generously offering all present free drinks from an extensive array in his shed fridge - is reluctant to estimate how much his labour of love has cost, but justifiably proud of the results.

"The new excavator was $35,000 for a start, but really it's more a time thing," he said.

"Just riding it yourself, that's how you build it. People who make something commercially and then ride it will say 'Yeah, this is good', but it's the time that you spend riding it and having other people ride it that really tells you."