This time on 5MR, my 3 brother in laws and I have p acked the bikes, swags and esky onto my new whip for a long awaited weekend of camping and mountain biking in icy-cold Thredbo.
At roughly 6hrs south of Sydney, Thredbo for most of the year doesn’t snow. So the geniuses that run the place carved a bunch of flow trails into the side of Mt Kosciusko. For those that don’t know, Kosciusko is the tallest mountain in the land down under. So by the power of deduction, these flow trails then should be the fastest place to ride on two wheels on the Australian continent.
With Friday as our travel day the trip down is quite scenic and it’s worth a stop when you get to Jindy for a look over the lake. We’ve booked lift passes for Saturday May 1st, which happens to be the last weekend of the mountain biking season before they shut down and reopen for the snow. So with a nice camp fire and few beers we settle in on our first night in anticipation for Saturdays adventure.
However on arrival at Thredbo the next day, our trail plans were sent into turmoil when we discovered most of the park was closed off. With only 1 lift operating, Canonball, an expert black diamond trail and Kosciusko flow trail, an intermediate blue track were all that was open to ride.
Kosciusko flow is a 5km downhill trail, consisting of a mere 1 meter climb and a whopping 466m descent. The average time to ride this super long downhill flowtrail is 13 minutes!
To begin, this slippery gravel track, part of Canonball, loops you onto the start of the Kosciusko flow trail. It’s immediately more interesting than I was expecting, with little rock garden features kicking things off. Without trying the bike picks up speed, but feeling a little blind to the trail Im nervously hovering two fingers over the brake levers.
It’s all rollable with humps and burms but there’s clearly a level of wear and tear on the trails which I was not expecting from a park like this.
But despite the ruts and lumps in some sections, it literally took no effort to generate speed, and the best way to get over the bumps was to do it quickly.
Now this is only the 3rd time I’ve experienced a gravity park, so it’s nice that they’ve put little rest areas along the trail to give brake hogs like myself a chance to rest my aching hands.
While most of Kosciusko flow is exactly that, designed for flow, there are definitely some fun features to handle along the way. Winding burms, and even a few spots where you can get the wheels off the ground are just a few examples, along with a significant section of jumps that unfortunately my GoPro decided to crap itself on, like it knew I was about to have another spectacular crash on the last jump.
Seems I’m 3 for 3 when it comes to gravity parks and coping a scrape.
Back on the bike, the last leg of the trail finishes off with a bunch of tight turns in the final race to the bottom.
So, what did I think of Thredbo? Well I gotta say, it sucked that most of the trails were closed. We decided early on to stay away from Cannonball and rode Kosciusko flow 3 times so from a riding perspective, it was a bit of a letdown due to the lack of variety that was available. But something about Thredbo that makes it a nice place to ride compared with other places, is the Thredbo village, where we were able to sit down to a pub lunch.
Unfortunately, I thought the general facilities were terribly catered for with no free public showers. Since the guys and I were camping we opted to pay the entry price to the Thredbo Leisure center for a hot shower at the end of the day, but for the cost of the lift passes, I think basic shower facilities should be included.
Will I go back to Thredbo next season? Mmm, maybe, I think I’d like to progress my downhill skills further before coming back. And if I do come back it would have to be mid-season to ensure the rest of the trails are open too.
And What about the camping? Well mountain biking or no mountain biking, the guys and I had an absolute ball. From cooking over the camp fire, to sleeping under the stars by the river, and sharing stories with plenty laughs – it doesn’t get much better than that. With a good number of camp sites in the area I highly recommend camping if you’re heading to Thredbo for a ride.
Thanks for watching. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of 5MR. If you’ve ridden the Kosciusko flow trail, let us know what you thought in the comments and remember to like and subscribe for more 5MR.
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