Warburton in the Upper Yarra Valley is proposed to be ‘The Mountain Bike Capital of Australia’ with 166+ kms of single lane mountain bike trails, up to 221,454 mountain bike tourists per year and many other developments that will turn our area into a Mega Mountain Bike Theme Park. More information about the project
Mountain Bike Trails are being built all over Australia in large numbers as part of the Federal Government’s push to increase adventure tourism. All this for a sport that is 90% male dominated and only 2.2% of the population in Australia – far less than any of the other sports it is disrupting here: walking, running, hiking, horse-riding, dog walking and golfing, etc.
The Council’s Warburton Mountain Bike Destination Project’s Socio-Economic Impact Assessment states that it is expected the negatively impacted may be:
the Vulnerable
Low-Paid Workers (workers will be brought in from elsewhere)
Renters
Residents
Volunteers
Businesses (that do not cater for mtbers)
Our community cohesiveness
The Warburton Mountain Bike Destination EES Socio-Economic Impact Assessment
Warburton Mountain Bike Destination – Our Concerns
Our major concerns about this project are:
- loss of permanent accommodation to Short Stay
- problems with evacuation in the event of fires
- traffic & parking problems
- strain on infrastructure
- strain on our emergency services, already stretched beyond capacity
- dominance of a mountain biking culture to the detriment of other subcultures
- loss of a close knit local community, replaced by a tourist culture
- loss of jobs
- stress to wildlife, both flora and fauna
- destruction of bush for trails, both legal and illegal
- damage to sites of heritage and aboriginal significance
- Loss of amenity for residents
- loss of amenity to other recreational users of the bush
- dumping of rubbish by tourists
- lighting of fires by tourists in our highly fire prone home
And now the Project is admitting that a good deal of these things are expected to happen. Many are already happening with our increasing problems with overtourism and with speculation on the Warburton Mountain Bike Destination.
More information about the issues
Current Problems with Mountain Bikers
Mountain bikers:
- use trails that are designated walkers only, even when their presence is especially dangerous to walkers (on narrow, steep grades with blind corners)
- build illegal tracks
- destroy DELWP signage advising no mountain bikes allowed on trails
- continue to use trails closed off by DELWP with rocks to prevent usage by riding around or through rocks
- destroy vegetation
- cause erosion
- have physically harmed, threatened and verbally abused walkers and residents
- cause traffic problems and disruption on our back roads
- build jumps and other structures into trails
- use chainsaws on vegetation either sides of paths
- use heritage structures as jumps and obstacles
- require rescuing for injured bikers in remote and difficult locations
- light fires
Although the Project People have promised that the Warburton Mountain Bike Destination will eliminate these problems, experience from other Mountain Bike Trail developments have demonstrated that this will not be the case.
Rethink Warburton Mountain Bike Destination 
I think this is destruction of our local history. The back stairs track. Cuts along and through the original Lady houpton gold mine site. And has rubbed out with human occupation all existing evidence. There is many sites of significance in our area. And your new trails will ruin many sites unknown to most. This is disappointing to our gold mining heritage. And disrespectful. Shining star mine. And it’s water race’s. And small community sites dotted through our mountain’s. No MTB track in Warburton. These sites should be protected buy government not allowed to be cut through. And how people can allow this to happen. With complete disregard is beyond my own logic. This is Australian history. The beginning of our story happened here. Keep out!!!
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