Hello again, this is the second installment of my column, A Line in the Dirt, I’m Troy and I thank you for tuning in. My life has been like riding in Derby, Tasmania, recently: heavy duty terrain, full forward and a trust that this trail was designed to reward my commitment. Intentionally designed beautiful movement, it’s what the trail builders had in mind from the very start of the plan. This experience of staying forward and bringing myself fully leads me to a place of understanding myself and it shares with me something that I have been seeking to know in my life; a full forward mind that’s not in a state of prevention but seeing the potential of intentional, mutual forward movement without “reasons of why not”. The powerful experience of moving past the idea of self-doubt is the guiding centerpiece of my life.
You will probably appreciate, respect and love trails way more once you understand what actually goes into such a profound outcome as this mutual and beautiful aforementioned feeling of busting a “sick whip” off a white granite boulder under a fern the size of your house…
If the world ever again tears down its walls and we can again move as free humans, go to Tasmania. I mean that’s truth right there, but it’s also not my pitch to overrun a place with tons of tourists. Tassy is for assertive mountain bikers, it’s a place to be out of doors, to be lost and feel the Earth. I chose to mention northern Tasmania mountain biking because it embodies exactly what I want to share with you: an intentional movement of like-minded people, although not always starting out that way, who came together and did an intentionally beautiful MTB thing in a broken tin mining town high up in the Blue Tier.
When I first had the chance to visit this place, ideas were scattered, people didn’t like other people and the mission was disagreed upon. Strong leadership, and a power from above, brought these views and everyone together as they embraced a very enthusiast targeted mountain bike trail system surrounding the remnants of the once burgeoning town of Derby. This place is magical by very nature in this north east point of Tasmania but the real magic was the intention of the design. It was realized that the market would be real mountain bikers, trails would be well designed for loops, directional travel specifically designed for flow. Maps were laid down with regard to the plants to showcase the World Heritage Site fauna of 300 foot tall ash trees. Trail designs supported every movement with intention and embraced every option through the pristine white boulders seemingly intending to guide every unique line you could envision from idea to construction. They saw the creativity of the rider and supported a line built of stone and created it on purpose to be sustainable and never require an off trail excursion.
This is what intentional beautiful looks like; it calls you forward, inspires your belief and begs us to “step up” and bring ourselves to the edge of vision meets movement meets earth.
These ideas, the vision of this project, a million hours of meetings and endless walking among the bush finally led to trail construction and the actual ground breaking of the project. Lines were carefully dialed in, rock walls built to support turns and water flow were carefully engineered to insure long-term stability of the trails. Built a foot at a time, stone by stone were placed intentionally to give you a visual target of the surface where the jump obviously lands. The net effect of this project is simply your movement, your smile, your realizations about your life as you plummet towards the Bay of Fires and feel inspired as a better rider than you previously believed you could be. This is what intentionally beautiful looks like; it calls you forward, inspires your belief and begs you to “step up” and bring it to the edge of when vision meets movement meets earth. We realized this experience is about you the whole time, every movement meant to create experience, to share an awesome, a journey of personal expansion seen over the bars of your bike. To realize that people built this on purpose, to love you, to share with you something special. To change all of us via the exposure of our ego, the realization of personal commitment and the sincerity of intentional, beautiful, mutual movement.
It’s exhilarating to ride here, so well thought out over a decade of planning, all streaming by as you giggle off jumps, roll downhill along a lake that seems to be eternal and barely ever needing to check a map because it seems obvious to follow the flow right back to town and to the pub. It’s well thought out and it’s a dang good example of intentional movement in mountain bike trail design.
In life, as on the bike, it would behoove us all to realize that the moments we cherish are those of intentional creation of beautiful movements. Cutting a corner on a trail introduces unintentional destruction where sustainable beautiful movement was the intent. Short cuts in our world have led to careless crimes against the truth of natural life and humanity in the name of a financial placebo. Our dealings with each other, with our world and with our inner dialogue of life could benefit from an intentionally beautiful, creative movement of bringing ourselves forward with the intent of creating beauty in the world, the places we go and people that we touch.
Honestly see your path ahead, go forward without fear and realize the powerful potential of intentional beautiful movements.
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