Red hot in Alice Springs

Alice Springs is smack bang in the centre of Australia, and if you've never been you might presume it's not the best place to go mountain biking. After all, it's s desert, it's hot and it's flat – right?

All that is true. Australia is a very dry continent, and a vast one too. Alice Springs was founded by colonists as a location for a telegraph station (which is still there), on the site of a spring on the Todd River.

Now, the Telepgraph Station is a historical site for tourists, but it's also the main hub for the maze of mountain bike trails around the town.

Alice Springs has countless kilometres of singletrack, and these marked trails are the easiest to navigate – but the popular west side trails and those further to the east are about to get a makeover as well, bringing more signage and official trail heads to the town, making it a whole lot easier for visitors to find their way through the labyrinth of dry, rocky and flowing trails.

Lasseters Easter in the Alice

The thing is, there are two well-regarded mountain bike events in Alice Springs that use so many of the hand-built trails out there. We ventured out to Lasseter's Easter in the Alice, a 3-day mountain bike stage race that also hosts the opening round of the MTBA Naional XCM Series as Stage 1.

The first day is the longest, with about 75km to race for the elite categories and 58km for open and age group categories. Sounds short, right? Well distances can seem deceptive in Alice. A kilometre is still a kilometre, but the rocky nature of the terrain makes some sections hard fought, and the twists and turns can keep overall average speeds lower. And of course as the temperature increases you tend to be pretty happy that you're not out for a 100km!

This race was won by Cam Ivory and Anna Beck in the elite men's and women's races, who both put a gap into Brendan Johnston and Karen Hill respectively – giving them a bit of a buffer for the coming two stages.

Stage two was 24km, but seemed to run over ever rock and ridgeline! A far more technical stage, it was hard-fought with technical prowess needing to be matched with fitness and race craft. Ivory and Beck proved again that they both had the right mix.

Stage three was different again, with some faster and more flowing trails – but still almost all singletrack for the 38km. A fast start up sandy doubletrack took riders into more hand-crafted trails that tipped and turned through the desert grasses and rock formations. It's easy to think that riding in Alice Springs might be flat sandy trails – but that couldn't be further from the truth. There are rock ledges and step ups, slab rocks to traverse, bench-cut trails into gullies, and fast trails that scythe through the grasses and rock formations on lines that have developed from animal trails.

The trails take you from high vantage points with views of the MacDonnell Ranges, to tight gullies where you would never believe you're just a few kilometres from the city centre. They are some of the most unique trails in Australia that have their own character that is distinct compared to other destinations.

This final stage saw new winners, as local Ryan Standish finally broke away from the leaders after riding strongly in both other stages, winning solo. While it wasn't a bother to Cameron Ivory or 2nd placed Brendan Johnston it did let Standish leapfrog Andy Blair and end up in 3rd overall.

Anna Beck wasn't the first woman across the line on this stage, instead it was Karen Hill, with Kim Willocks, Imogen Smith and Em Viotto just behind. Beck remained the overall winner ahead of Hill and Willocks.

Full results are available online.

More than a bike race

Of course, there's a lot more to do in Alice Springs than race. It's a great way to meet like-minded people and ride the trails, but there are plenty more trails to ride and check out. The big news is there is a new multi-day trail being built, likely to be about 200km long and catering for point-to-point riders with campsites and amenities.

There is already a bike path out to Simpson's Gap, which makes a great sidetrip on your bike, but this new trail will really open up more options in Central Australia, allowing mountain bikers to experience the breadth and diversity of the vast red centre of our country.

We sat down to hear more about it, but keep an eye out for a full feature in a coming issue.