Mountain biking in Orange, NSW

Words and photos: Colin Levitch

Mountain bike tourism in Australia is no joke, and nowadays you can’t walk across the baggage claim at Launceston airport without tripping over at least three bike bags headed for Blue Derby. Aiming to catch the wave of destination riding, rural centers are starting to capitalize on traveling mountain bikers itching to explore trails around the country.

One such rural center is Orange, NSW. Know for apples, stone fruits, and wineries, there are two developed trail networks at Kinross and Lake Canobolas, with locals hoping to build legal singletrack onto the 1395m Mount Canobolas.

Over the holiday period, we caught up with the Orange MTB club, who gave us a tour of the trails at Lake Canobolas and filled us in on their goals for the area.

Trails by the lake

“We were given access to this site about five years ago, to come in and build a network of trails; everything was hand cut for the first three years,” Jack Rahilly from the Orange Mountain Bike Club said. “We hosted the National Series at Kinross, which is quite a bit more developed, and were able to get some funding for excavators and an earth worker—who is also a mountain biker—to do a bit of work.”

Since then the club has been hard at work expanding the network; they’ve even built a jump track.

“The aim was to have a good mixture of trails that were fast and flowing, and combine that with some that are technical and tough—fun but a good challenge. The site by itself is quite tame, and the soil isn’t rocky; the features we have put in are completely man-made, every rock had to be brought in and placed,” Rahilly continued.

The Lake Canobolas trail network itself sits on what was initially zoned to be an ‘earth sanctuary,’ where the council had planned to have a zoo of sorts, housing endangered species—a project which proved too expensive for the local government to complete. So, the council turned to the mountain bike club and asked if they’d like to do something with the space.

Having been designed to keep animals in, the site surrounded by sturdy fencing, and deterring motorbikes and hoodlums is as simple as locking the front gate. There’s also a scout camp right next door complete with toilets, running water and camping facilities.

Fresh Squeezed

The trails at Lake Canoblas are laid out with the easier loops closer to the parking lot, and more technical trails and jump track out the back, meaning as skills and fitness progress so do the trails.

The singletrack itself is largely flowy and fast, with the red dirt carefully shaped to perfection. The entire network has been built and designed by club members, with no trail design outfits enlisted to help with the execution—though you’d never know it. It’s not the most technical trail network in the country, but there’s still a few features and climbs that will have you going back to ride a few times until you get it right.

At the moment in Orange, there is a total of 20km of single track at Kinross, and 10km at Lake Canobolas, but the club has plans to keep expanding. With a potential vertical drop rivaling what some of the Australian ski resorts have on offer, Mount Canobolas has the terrain for long sustained descents; now it just needs the approval.

“At the moment there is a plan in place to build a network of trails in Mount Canobolas which is a few km down the road from here (Lake Canobolas),” Rahilly said. “It’s a state conservation area, so we need the permission to build there. It’s currently in the public comment period to change the plan of management that would allow for mountain biking.”

“Apparently there is even a proposal that came to council to build a chairlift from here at Lake Canobolas to the top of the mountain. They have taken it to consideration, but that’s probably as far as it will go,” he laughed.

Eats and drinks

Ride destinations aren’t just about the trails, the surrounding area needs to have some character too, and the trail center needs to be accessible. There’s no question that Orange and the surrounds have got wineries on lock the vineyards like Philip Shaw, Patina Wines, and Bloodwood to name a few; there’s also two breweries, a cidery and a growing foodie scene in town too.

If you stay in town, it only takes about 20min to ride out to Lake Canobolas on quiet backroads, and you could connect a loop with Kinross.

Is Orange going to be the next big mountain biking destination? With the effort the club is putting into trail building, the changing vibe of the town, the most significant remaining hurdle would be the distance from Sydney airport — but Orange does have a regional airport served with direct flights from Melbourne and Brisbane, and even Sydney. It looks like everything is lining up for this NSW town.