Cancelled Quad Crown mountain bike event to return in 2023 and use new Eden trails

Racing in Eden and Tathra was to have been followed by races in East Gippsland, Sunshine Coast and Tasmania later in the year.

Director of Quad Events Chris Heverin said multiple issues relating to courses, access to trails, weather and COVID had come to a head forcing the organisation to make the difficult decision to cancel for 2022.

The plan had been to use forestry and fire trails as Eden's new mountain bike trails have only recently started construction.

Now the event has been rescheduled with the Quad Crown Sapphire Coast 2023 taking place across the weekend of September 8-10, 2023.

This means that with the Eden Trails Hub Project due for completion in June 2023, the event will make the most of the nearly 60km of new single track in Eden, which will be the feature of the mini stage-race weekend.

President of Eden Mountain Bike Club Stan Soroka, was excited by the prospect of the Eden stages and said the trails, which are currently under construction, would be ready for the rescheduled event.

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In a statement issued by Destination NSW, Mr Heverin said the Quad Crown MTB Series team had been committed to bringing a series of events to mountain bikers over Australia's newest trails.

"Over the course of the year we had to make compromises to the series. Unfortunately this week weather has put us in the position where compromise just isn't possible without severely impacting the quality and fabric of our planned Sapphire Coast event," he said.

"As much as wish we could, we can't control the weather and we have had to make the unfortunate decision to cancel the Sapphire Coast race for 2022. The ripple effect of this decision, coupled with the ongoing pandemic, means we've also made the very difficult decision to cancel the 2022 series in its entirety."

Mr Heverin said two big factors came to a head a couple of weeks ago with "multiple issues on courses and access to trails" and locally "damage to trails" in the area.

He said while they looked at rescheduling, the timelines became too tight and there were still unresolved matters.

"The support from local partners in Eden and Tathra has been outstanding and we're really pleased with those partnerships. The area was chosen because of the development in mountain bike trails and we're all committed to the region."

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