Tarrengower is thought to be an Aboriginal word meaning ‘big rough hill’. You’d be hard pressed to come up with a more fitting name for the popular downhill location near Maldon, Central Victoria. Mt Tarrengower is made from hornsfels, a collection of super heated and hardened volcanic rocks. Beneath the tree cover there is no shortage of rough stuff.

I was heading out to visit my father-in-law at Maldon and took the HD along for a couple of runs at Tarrengower.  I’m still very much learning my way around the network of trails there, so every run is a bonus.

After the climb to the summit from the bottom car park I headed down (what I think was) ‘Rockin’ which true to its name is thick with rocks of all shapes and sizes. There’s hardly a moment where your tires aren’t on rocks. Lots of wheel eating massive erosion, and for me not much flow. Can’t say I enjoyed it much TBH, but what it did do is reset my perception of the condition of other trails on the mount.

Climb back to the top on the HD and really enjoyed the next run down what I thought was ‘Lawrence’ but it turned out part way down I crossed over to the track that will be used in this weekend’s final round of the state downhill series (moved from the You Yangs to Mt Tarrengower due to the flood damage and subsequent problems) . The run was in great condition compared to Rockin, and with some good flow and speed much more the kinda thing I enjoy. A few of the jumps were too crazy for me at this stage, but I’d happily ride back up to the top to do that run again, a few times even!

If/when finances allow I hope to get a Reverb seat post. I had to settle for a manual Reverb today, dropping the seat post ~70mm for the downhill runs. More would’ve been better.

As for Lawrence, dang I still haven’t managed a run the whole way down though it turns out I wasn’t far from it today. Thanks to Michael at The Bike Vault I reckon I’ll find it next time around.