We’ve witnessed Bright grow from a sweet little town with an untamed labyrinth of pine forest singletrack, to hosting many national level races, formalisation of signed and mapped trails, to the construction of the impressive Hero Trail. Using much of the land beneath a working forest, the trails often have to shift their location to let the logging proceed, but with cooperation comes the opportunity to rebuild and expand.
With the Hero Trail under the chainsaw blade, a new beast has emerged, Shred Kelly’s Last Stand is an all-new descending trail that opened earlier this year, filling the gap in the network that the Hero Trail left. Freshly constructed by the savvy Trailscapes crew, it’s a beauty.
Our trip to Bright was not going to be much without serious talent, someone that would make this place look as good as it can be, so we got in touch with a local shredder, Aaron Gungl. Aaron at only 18 years of age has deep experience in going fast, he’s represented Australia at World Champs and his racing palmares are aplenty, watching him push his bike through the turns was hard to believe.
Catching up with Aaron we wandered deep into the forest to find the new trail. Like someone had taken a giant ice cream scoop and carved out a long line of delicious jumps and lines through the dark red dirt, the new is sweet to ride.
With quite a different feel entirely different to the Hero Track, it is less rocky, and it appears excellent attention has been spent to speed management, the jumps flow well with the speed you approach them.
If you’re keen to improve your jumping game, Bright’s new trail would be a great one to lap a few times to build up to let it fly.
After roosting down Shred Kelly, we cooled off with a spin along the creek, meandering and weaving through the green riverbank, one of the seemingly endless amounts of trails accessible from the town centre.
It’s an easy place to ride flowing singletrack from town, or shuttle up to the higher trails for more of a thrill, Bright has a vast spread of trails on offer. Damn, it’s easy to fall in love with Bright!
For more information, trail maps and everything else you need, head to Ride High Country’s website.