theres a lot of variety there. depends on what you mean by fun… theres XC. enduuuurrrro and DH all in various trails. plus skiidddds for days.
Variety thats what I understand as fun 
The riding I’m after has different names, we used to call it freeriding back in the good ol days, but I call it mountain biking and am just pointing out that I’m more after downs than ups while not saying that I dont like to ride up. Transition calls is Up and Down Mountains, I think that sums it up. Just making sure that I dont need to wear my aerosuit and bring my carbon hardtail when Im heading that way.
ive ridden a couple of other epic trails, comfortably numb and 7 summits both on BC Canada, wondering how this one compares? ie fire road to single track ratio, etc. Anyone ridden any other epics? I think IMBA has a list.
My friends rode some of it on the weekend and rated it highly.
I’m going the weekend after this on my way back up to Canberra if anyone is going to be around. Would love some company!
Will report back/take photos.
How did you go?
Heading up tomorrow for the weekend. Tempted to lug the dSLR about.
Ended up riding different trails due to logistics, will head down when I get the chance.
Just bring your smart phone and have fun.
Took this advice. Weight wise I was loving it. A few sections that we waited on the beginners in our group to get down I wish I had it. (This implies I can ride - I definitely cant)
Camped in the ‘staff car park’ in mirimbah. Shuttled to the top.
Rode the tracks around the village and down to the skill’s area. Decided the epic was too much for most of our group skills/legs wise. Did another couple laps and back down to camp along delatite track. Which was damn steep in some spots. And surprisingly hard physically as its almost all full speed descending which means your quads get hammered from being behind your saddle for a good 40 minutes.
Finished up sitting in the river drinking beers.
I hate loose rocky/gravelly trail, buller is full of it. And I loved the trails up there. Will be back with more fitness and more skills to appreciate it better. Couldn’t ride today, hip flexor was misbehaving… Pretty bummed.
^ Subscriber only article!
HIGH across the roof of Australia, the alpine country is quietly transforming — as ski resorts hurl their businesses off-piste and into the gravity-fed world of mountain biking.
The one-in-a-century drought that broke several years ago left ₪resorts from Thredbo in NSW to Mount Buller in Victoria trying to manage increasingly unpredictable weather, forcing ski managers to draw from the North American and European experience.
In the northern hemisphere, skiing destinations have for years been supplementing once-₪meagre summer income with mountain biking, which is best conducted in the dry, when trails are accessible and least likely to be damaged.
To the uninitiated, mountain biking is to alpine country what surfing is to the ocean; an often rhythmical pursuit that rewards with sweet moments of downhill riding after climbing — at times — more than 1000m in one ride.
For Mount Buller’s Andrew Railton-Stewart, 41, a lifetime’s riding has turned into a business opportunity, renting out otherwise vacant chalet space in the Victorian Alps to some of the tens of thousands of riders flooding to the mountains 231km northeast of Melbourne.
“It’s growing in a massive way,’’ he says after a brief session on the trails. “It’s an amazing trajectory I’ve been on.’’
From year one to year two, his Andy’s Fat Tyre Bike Lodge ₪doubled; the following year it was just short of triple and this year it is on path to double again.
The figures defy what insiders lament has been a 25-year trend of economic uncertainty for the ski industry, a concept that is both worldwide and difficult for resorts to address.
This drive towards mountain-biking is being replicated at most Australian ski resorts.
At Thredbo in NSW, there is a similar story. A 50km mountain bike trail from the top of the Thredbo chairlifts down to Jindabyne — if ₪finished — would be longer than Mount Buller’s new Epic trail. The Epic trail is, however, Australia’s only internationally recognised large-scale mountain biking facility.
Similar stories of mountain bike expansions are being written in most resorts, with the only real opposition coming from horseback riders in The Man from Snowy River country complaining of the occasional spooked steed.
John Huber, the chief executive of Mount Buller and Mount Stirling Resort Management, said the trend ₪towards mountain biking had been detected eight years ago. “We have been working very, very hard at that,’’ he said, adding the entire summer calendar had been rewritten to include festivals and other alpine sports.
In a “summer’’ period that actually lasts from the first weekend in December to Easter, more than 45,000 mountain bike trail trips have been recorded in a season.
Trail usage at Mount Buller has soared 143 per cent and overall summer visitation at the resort is up 16 per cent during the past three years. They are the sort of numbers that most businesses would kill for. It is — as Andrew Railton-Stewart notes — “a win for everyone’’.
Thread bump.
One of my new years resolutions is to challenge myself on my SS 29er, so figured this trail might be worth a look.
People have said there is heaps more up than down, which kinda suits the whole challenge part for me.
So has anyone done this SS? What gearing were you running? Was it deathly hard, or just semi difficult?
At this stage I’d like to have a crack before winter, and then maybe again after winter.
Before and after comparison kinda thing.
THank you.
yeah, i did the first bit of it (maybe a good chunk of hte climbing? from the village up to something pretty high, then a loop on the trail that everyone seems to love) on 34:19 on a 29er. Was fine on the epic trail proper, coming back on medusa was something that i did not enjoy and probably wouldnt do again on any bike. I say give it a shot, the climbing that I remember was not heaps of power-pinches, but more sustained. Its beautiful up there.
Edit: climbed to what looks like bluff spur memorial shelter, near mt stirling, then the stonefly loop, then back via split rock and some other fun things, other than medusa. Didnt go down the corn spur thing. Funny that the only trail that I remember the name of is Medusa, for all the wrong reasons. Stonefly loop is good, eh… lots of people told us to do that instead of the epic loop. unsure of what peoples thuoghts are on that these days, though.
Thanks JP, appreciate it.
Sounds like it is achievable, even on my current 32:18.
May I ask, what didn’t you like about Medusa to mention it twice?!
I couldnt get up it 
I remember it being v tight switchbacks with little-to-no camber, and very loose and dry gravel over rock hard clay/dirt. Made for lots of breaking loose of the rear wheel under effort, and knee smacking into stem more than once. I walked it in the end. It was hot, I was tired, and I’m not that good… so its probably fine!
LIES LIES LIES…
the stonefly climb is long-ish (~1hr of climbing) but i reckon would be doable on reasonable gear. lots of switchbacks but no crazy pinches IIRC, its kinda fun to zone out and chip away at it, stopping to enjoy the lushness is also recommended.
Yeh, I call complete and utter BS.
Ha! I get the feeling everyone is becoming dirt wizards these days, wouldn’t surprise me at all if people here can tear up that climb SS without moaning like I did