The standard Tasmania script has riders landing in Hobart and going straight to one park. That's a fine week. But thread the island end-to-end — Maydena's 820 m of gravity in the south-west, the Juggernaut at Hollybank on the way through Launceston, three days in Blue Derby's rainforest, and the Bay of Fires Trail finisher at St Helens — and you get something closer to the full picture. This tasmania mountain bike road trip runs 7 days Hobart to Derby (and beyond), with drive times that actually work, what to book ahead, and the one shuttle day you cannot skip.
Quick picks
- Day 1 base: Westerway or Maydena village — 1h15m from Hobart Airport, good accommodation within 10 min of the gates
- Best gravity day: Maydena Bike Park — 820 m vertical, 85+ trails, summit uplift bus from 9am
- Best transit ride: Hollybank — 25 min from Launceston, the Juggernaut descent is worth the stop
- Best town culture: Blue Derby — 125+ km, free, entire township built around riding
- Best epic day: Bay of Fires Trail — 44 km from the Blue Tier to Swimcart Beach, shuttle required, book ahead
- Fly home from: Launceston (LST) — 2 hrs from St Helens, direct to Melbourne and Sydney
- Best transport option: Hire car or campervan — no public transport reaches any of these trailheads
The route at a glance
| Stop |
Drive from previous |
Network |
Entry |
| Maydena Bike Park |
1h15m from Hobart Airport |
85+ trails, 820 m vert, uplift bus |
0 Mountain Pass + uplift ($95/day summit) |
| Hollybank |
2–2.5h from Maydena, 25 min from Launceston |
~20 km, Juggernaut descent |
Free |
| Blue Derby |
1h30m from Launceston |
125+ km, 40+ trails, rainforest |
Free (shuttles paid separately) |
| St Helens |
1h from Derby |
110 km, Bay of Fires Trail (44 km) |
Free (shuttles paid separately) |
Day 1: Hobart arrival
Hobart Airport is small, the hire car queue moves fast, and you're on the Brooker Highway in under an hour. What you do with that first afternoon depends on when your flight lands.
Early landing: drive straight to Maydena (1h15m via the Southern Outlet and Lyell Highway). The park runs uplifts until 3:30 pm; arriving by noon puts two or three summit runs in reach before dinner.
Midday landing or later: Clarence MTB Park in the Meehan Range is 10 minutes from the CBD — 40 km of singletrack with a pump track and skills park at the Flagstaff Gully trailhead, free, no booking. Grassy Valley Descent and the Corkscrew are the trails worth doing before it gets dark. It's a warmup, not a destination, but it's riding. Stay in Hobart and get to Maydena the next morning; there's solid short-stay accommodation in the city, and the early-morning drive is easy.
See the mountain biking in Hobart guide for the full rundown on Clarence and the day-trip options west.
Days 2–3: Maydena Bike Park
Maydena is 85-plus trails on Abbotts Peak in the Derwent Valley, the biggest descent-focused park in Australia, 820 m of vertical from summit to village. Simon French of Dirt Art opened the first 35 km on Australia Day 2018; it has grown to roughly 80 km of singletrack across three zones — lower mountain, mid, and summit — plus a Wilderness area (Middle Earth, Outer Limits, Vista) accessed by the summit bus then a 400 m climbing trail.
Two days here is the right call. One day is enough to sample the mountain; two days is enough to actually ride it.
Day 2 plan: Buy a Mountain Pass (
Day 3 plan: Summit again in the morning, then shift down to the mid-zone for the afternoon. Scandinavia (green flow) and Marriott's (blue flow) run lower gradients and longer rhythm sections. The base village has an asphalt pump track and a skills area with dirt jumps and an air zone — worth doing as legs start to fade. Finish the day at the wood-fired sauna and cold plunge before the drive north.
Maydena is closed for winter and runs a reduced schedule in off-peak weeks (typically Fri–Sun in autumn and spring, Thu–Sun during school holidays, 7 days across Christmas–New Year). Spring 2026 reopened on 3 October on a weekend schedule. Check the season calendar at maydenabikepark.com before you book — the specific open days shift slightly year to year.
The village has on-site accommodation and a café (The Patio). Westerway, 10 minutes east, has more options. Book ahead if travelling over Easter or Christmas holidays.
View park guide →
Day 4: Transfer north — Hollybank stopover
The drive from Maydena to Launceston without going back through Hobart runs via the Lyell Highway north-west to Derwent Bridge, then picks up the A5 northeast through Deloraine — about 2 to 2.5 hours total. It's a longer drive than the Hobart route but cuts significant backtracking.
Hollybank Reserve is 25 minutes north-east of Launceston CBD via the Tasman Highway. It's not a destination on the level of what you've just come from or where you're going, but the Juggernaut is a 10 km descent built by Dirt Art (the same crew behind Maydena), and it rides nothing like anything else in the north. The trail drops from the top of the reserve through steep Tasmanian ash and larch, with optional double-black chutes — Ginger Ridge and Reverb — dropping off the main line near the top if you want consequences.
The shuttle road is a gazetted public road — 10.5 km of gravel, 400 m of elevation, 12–15 minutes each way. Commercial shuttles run via Mountain Bike Tasmania and Hollybank Treetops Adventure; alternatively you can drive yourself to the top. Two or three laps of the Juggernaut is a good afternoon's work before checking into Launceston.
No café on site. Lilydale is 10 minutes away; Launceston has everything. Trailhead has toilets, water, bike wash and a pump track.
View park guide →
Days 5–6: Blue Derby
Derby is 1 hour 30 minutes from Launceston — a fast morning drive through the north-east foothills. The trailhead is on Main Street in a former tin-mining town that peaked at 3,000 residents and now has 109. The town's entire economy is mountain bikes. Bike shops, shutters, cafes, accommodation — all of it built around riding since 2015 when World Trail opened the first 30 km.
The network is 125-plus km, free, open dawn to dusk every day, no booking. The Derby zone has 35-plus trails looping through temperate rainforest — myrtle beech, sassafras, tree fern, granite slabs — above the Ringarooma River. Blue Tier adds three long shuttle-accessed descents from the Weldborough side.
Day 5 plan: Start on Krushka's. It's the standard first ride for a reason — 8.6 km of blue intermediate flow descent that shows you what a Glen Jacobs–designed trail feels like when the roots are covered in damp loam and the berms are banked right into the hillside. From there, Atlas (8 km tech descent from the Kingswall climb) is the logical next step up, and Air-ya-garn (1.7 km black) has the rebuilt infinity berm from the 2022 landslide debris — a weird, wild feature that no trail builder would engineer from scratch. Both require either pedalling the Kingswall climb (~400 m) or paying for a shuttle. Vertigo MTB is the most established operator and runs a reliable schedule.
For the afternoon, Detonate (double-black, 650 m, EWS 2017 Trail of the Year) is short enough to walk back up and assess before committing. It's steep, it's loud underfoot, and the first section reads cleaner than it rides. Come in with fresh legs, not end-of-day legs.
Day 6 plan: Book a Blue Tier shuttle day with Vertigo MTB. The Blue Tier trail is a 22 km point-to-point through ancient rainforest starting near Weldborough (above 500 m) and finishing at Weldborough Pub. It's not a laps trail — it's the long one, the ride you talk about on the flight home. The descent is runnable in 2 to 3 hours; most people take longer because the forest stops you. Big Chook (5.4 km intermediate) and Little Chook (2.5 km easy) are also shuttle-served from the Blue Tier zone. Note: Blue Tier, Big Chook and Little Chook close in July and reopen in late September — they should be open by October.
Accommodation in Derby books out in peak periods. Blue Derby Pods Ride is the benchmark MTB accommodation on the island — book it early. Dorset Hotel and the township's Airbnbs absorb the overflow.
View park guide →
Day 7: St Helens
St Helens is an hour east of Derby on the B82 via Weldborough and the Tasmanian Heritage Highway — a scenic drive that crosses the Blue Tier ridge before dropping to the east coast. St Helens township is at the southern end of the Bay of Fires, a coastline of white sand and orange granite that gets photographed more than it gets ridden.
The trail network has 110 km of singletrack across two main systems. The Flagstaff Trailhead (4 km south of town) has stacked XC and flow loops — 66 km of green and blue with three black-diamond gravity descents (Send Helens, Icarus, Shucka) added in June 2020. The Bay of Fires Trail is the marquee ride: a 44 km point-to-point starting on the Blue Tier at 1,360 m and finishing on Swimcart Beach. It's the only Australian ride that takes you from alpine to coast in a single trail.
For a one-day visit, the practical choice is the Flagstaff loops in the morning (book a shuttle for Loila Tier gravity — Gravity Isle Shuttles, 0474 371 365) and the Bay of Fires Trail on a fresh day if you have a second night. One day is enough to sample the character of the network; the Bay of Fires Trail rewards an early start and a whole day.
From St Helens, Launceston Airport is 2 hours south-west via the Tasman Highway — a manageable drive even with morning legs from a ride. Devonport (ferry terminal for the Spirit of Tasmania) is about 2 hours north-west if you're bringing bikes home that way.
View park guide →
Should you hire a car or a campervan?
Every trailhead on this route requires a car. There is no practical public transport to Maydena, Hollybank, Derby or the St Helens Flagstaff Trailhead — the nearest coaches drop you in town, not at the gates.
A hire car from Hobart Airport works. A campervan is worth considering if your trip is July through September, when regional accommodation is lighter on supply than the rest of the year, or if you're riding parks back-to-back and don't want to move accommodation every night. The van parks near each stop are well-placed: Westerway Caravan Park near Maydena, the Derby Recreation Ground has powered sites, St Helens Foreshore has a large camp close to the trailhead. Campervans also carry bikes more easily than mid-size hire cars with seatback hitches and rear door angles that don't quite clear a 29er.
The downside is time on the road: a van works at a road-trip pace, not a DH-laps pace. If you're chasing days at Maydena with uplift, a lighter car makes the morning run and post-ride sauna easier to schedule.
For more on overnight options near trail networks: camping near MTB trails in Australia and the shuttle bike parks guide (which maps commercial uplift options for the parks that have them).
When is the best time for the tasmania mountain bike road trip?
October is ideal — Maydena's spring season is open, Blue Tier has reopened after its July–September closure, and school holiday crowds don't arrive until mid-December. The east coast weather is drier and warmer than the west, so Derby and St Helens ride well from September onward.
Summer (December–February) is the busiest period: Maydena extends to seven days a week across Christmas and New Year, Derby fills its accommodation from the mainland, and the Bay of Fires Trail is in peak demand. Uplift bookings at Maydena and shuttle bookings at St Helens can sell out — 1–2 weeks ahead in December and January is not excessive.
Autumn (March–May) is quieter and often better for trail conditions: settled weather, less dust, trails in their best shape after a summer of use.
Winter (June–August): Maydena closes on 28 June and doesn't reopen until early October. Blue Tier and Big Chook also close July–September. The core Derby network rides all year, and St Helens Flagstaff loops handle winter better than most Tasmanian networks given the east coast's drier climate. A winter trip that skips Maydena and focuses on Derby and St Helens is perfectly viable — just cold.
FAQ
How many days do you need for a Tasmania MTB road trip?
Seven days covers the four main stops comfortably — two days at Maydena, a transit day via Hollybank, two days at Blue Derby, and one day at St Helens. To add the Bay of Fires Trail as a full day rather than a half, add an eighth. A five-day trip works if you skip the Hollybank detour and compress to two full days at either Maydena or Derby.
Is Maydena open in October?
Yes. The 2026 spring season reopened from 3 October on a weekend schedule (Fri–Sun, expanding Sat–Mon over the summer), with the full season running through to late June. Always check the operator's season calendar before you book — specific days shift slightly year to year and can change at short notice.
Do you need to book shuttle days in advance at Blue Derby and St Helens?
For weekends and peak periods (school holidays, long weekends), yes. Vertigo MTB at Derby and Gravity Isle at St Helens both have online booking — aim for 1–2 weeks ahead in October and 2–3 weeks in December through January. Mid-week is generally easier to get on short notice.
Can you do this road trip without a campervan?
Yes. Hire car works fine and is faster. Accommodation is available at each stop — Westerway near Maydena, Launceston for the transit night, Derby township, and St Helens foreshore. Book Derby accommodation well in advance; it fills faster than anywhere else on the route.
Which park should you ride first, Maydena or Blue Derby?
Maydena works better as the opener if you're flying into Hobart — it's 1h15m from the airport and requires the most physical freshness (820 m of vertical is demanding). Derby as a finisher also means the alpine-to-coast Bay of Fires Trail at St Helens closes out the trip on the east coast. If you're flying into Launceston, run the itinerary in reverse.
Is the Bay of Fires Trail hard?
The Bay of Fires Trail is 44 km, classed blue, with about 1,360 m of descent from the Blue Tier start to Swimcart Beach. The grade is manageable for a confident intermediate rider. The distance is the challenge — it's a long day on the bike, and the shuttle to the start from Derby takes around an hour. Most riders take 4–6 hours on the trail. Book Gravity Isle Shuttles from St Helens for the return leg from the beach.
Plan your trip
The Tasmania trails map has all four parks with current facilities, trail counts and links to operators. For deep dives on individual parks: the Maydena Bike Park review, the Blue Derby MTB review and the top 5 MTB parks in Tasmania cover the state's full picture.
For the Maydena vs Derby choice if you only have four days: Maydena vs Derby — how to choose.
The shuttle bike parks guide maps every uplift-served park nationally; the camping near MTB trails guide covers the van and tent options near trailheads around the country.
Maydena's season dates: maydenabikepark.com. Derby's trail status: ridebluederby.com.au. St Helens shuttle bookings: gravityisle.com.