Just before the third stop of The Quad Crown, The Orca, pedalled into Eden, NSW, the team behind the event had announced a change in venue for the finale. Newcastle would host the fourth and final event of the 2023 Quad Crown season from 10-12 November.
Initially, the final stop on the Series was headed for the brand new trails in Omeo, Victoria. However, unforeseen delays in construction meant the volume of singletrack needed to run a stage race wasn’t going to be ready. So, the event team pivoted and set their sights on Newcastle.
This is a homecoming of sorts, given the folks behind the Quad Crown started the Port to Port, and a good portion of the event team lives in Newcastle.
Course designer Liam McGuire tells us he never expected to be piecing together a stage race in his backyard again and still has quite a few tricks up his sleeve.
“There was a lot of work I put into Port to Port over the years that never saw the light of day, and there were tracks that I uncovered that were never used. There was also some private property that we’d secured passage through that never got used, and it will be really cool to get to use some of those tracks, ” he says.
While it may go some of the same places as Port to Port traditionally has, as Jason Dover explained to Flow after The Orca, with a different focus the Quad Crown course won’t just be a copypasta.
“Previously, when we’ve done XC stage races in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley, you tend to put in a lot of fire roads because you need to create a 50-60km course. We’ve got the luxury of creating smaller stages now that should feature all the best parts of an area, rather than worrying about kilometres,” he says.
With that, it’s also been since 2019 that the Port to Port ran, and there is quite a bit of new trail across the networks in the area for the race to explore. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the Quad Crown Black Pearl.
Quad Crown Black Pearl Race Preview
Prelude | Glenrock | 9km
To kick off the Black Pearl, the race rolls into Glenrock for the Prelude. This 9km sprint is used to determine start seeding but also to set your handicap that will be used to coronate the Warrior King and Queen.
Average speed is calculated based on your finishing time and is used a bit like a handicap in golf to compare your performance across the stages. Whoever outperforms their handicap by the most over the weekend will be crowned — yes, there are actual crowns — Warrior King and Queen.
Starting and finishing just inside the gate on Gun Club Road, McGuire tells Flow the 9km route through Glenrock is a bit like a highlights reel of the network — and any notable omissions from this course will be run on Sunday.
“I don’t want to give too much away because we have a couple of surprises up our sleeve, but it will be a clockwise loop that will take people past the table so they can enjoy the views (of Burwood Beach),” he says. “It takes in a lot of the recently spruced-up trails and finishes with Double Barrel into Twisties as the last singletrack and is a section everyone will know well because it’s a lot of fun.”
McGuire says the part he’s looking forward to the most on the Prelude is when folks hit the Snakes and Ladders climb.
“It was revamped earlier in the year, so it’s riding really well. When all the guys and girls are racing for sheep stations at the bottom of that, it will be interesting to see what happens. Cam Ivory holds the KOM on that climb and has had it for maybe ten years, we’re excited to see if anyone can challenge it,” he says.
Stage 1 | Awaba | 40km
The show hits the road to Awaba on Saturday morning, with the 40km stage starting and finishing at the bike park.
The stage heads out on Mount Nellinda Road into the Olney State Forest.
“There’s a lot of secret singletrack in there and some overgrown moto tracks that we’ve spruced up and linked together. It will be a lot of fun, but there are some fairly rugged bits as well,” he says.
Riders will enter the actual MTB park via Bangalow Road and descend the Biraban gravity trail into the XC loop.
“We’ve managed to link up the XC parts of Awaba, back up to Mount Faulk Road to climb back up to Faulk Line. This is a new feature of the course in that we’ve designed it to include both gravity trails that feed into Awaba — these tracks have been used in enduro events over the previous years, like the Rocky Trail Superflow,” says McGuire. “Faulk Line and Wild Polly will probably be the highlight as they’re both new trails since the last time a lot of people will have come through.”
As to where the stage will be decided, McGuire predicts the Camelbak Climb, which is in the last third of the race, will be where the day is won and lost.
“Whoever hits the top of that first, it (the course) goes into Wild Polly, and then the little XC loop back to the car park, which is pretty much the finish. Camelbak Climb is always a decisive section in Awaba,” says McGuire.
Stage 2 | Newcastle | 37km
“You know that song Dizzy (by Tommy Roe)? That’s the first thing that comes to mind with this stage — you’re making me dizzy,” says McGuire.
With the event being called Quad Crown, there is a pub next to the Whitebrige Trails called the Royal Crown Hotel, with a publican who loves mountain bikers. McGuire tells Flow designed the stage around starting and finishing here.
“It’s a bit of a complicated course. You’re riding through back streets and disused railway corridors, some virgin trails that basically only get cleared (in the past) for Port to Port,” he says. “If I was going out for a two-hour ride from my place in Redhead and wanted to include all the local stuff. This is it.”
Hitting Whitebridge, Fernleigh, Redhead and Glenrock, this stage is a who’s who of singletrack in Newcastle.
From the Royal Crown, it’s straight over to the Fernleigh Track onto an alignment that’s featured in Port to Port to get to Glenrock.
“We’ll do a loop of Glenrock that will incorporate a few of the trails that we missed out on on Friday — like Kenny’s, BJ’s, and It Happens,” says McGuire.
Then, the course backtracks to take riders to Redhead and then on to Whitebridge.
McGuire tells Flow he thinks the splits that will turn out to be race-winning moves will happen on the climb up Dudley Beach Road, on the way back from Glenrock. He also says he is most excited for folks to ride the flowy section towards the end of the Redhead part of the stage.
What else do I need to know?
Just before COVID hit and effectively killed Port to Port as we know it, the Newcastle/Hunter Valley Stage race was approaching 1,000 entries and was approaching the status that Cape to Cape had achieved.
“What excites me the most and the point that I really want to drive at is that, hopefully, we get a lot of locals, all the people that have done Port to Port before. We want to show all the people watching that there is a lot of interest for an event like this in Newcastle,” says McGuire.
With nationals headed for Awaba in March 2024, The Black Pearl also gives folks an opportunity to get a feel for the event venue.
“We’re hoping to include a few things they’re building out there for Nationals. For anyone looking to come down to Nationals, this is a good opportunity for them to familiarise themselves a bit with the changes that have gone on at Awaba so far,” he says.
Who can race The Black Pearl and how do I enter?
With elite and open racing categories and even an e-MTB class, you can sign up for the entire weekend or just ride on Saturday or Sunday alone.
Entries are open now, head over to the Quad Crown website for more information.