Danomite

(Dan’s Track)

The Jubilee Park trails were tirelessly constructed by many people over many years. All manner of local legends, rogues and rascals played some part in building both the vibrant MTB culture surrounding the trails, and the trails themselves. One such local legend was Dan O’Neill. Dan loved both mountain biking, and trail running, and could often be found out riding or running in the park. Dan was very involved with the club, a friendly guy with a warm smile, and an easy going nature, always happy to lend a hand, when, and where ever it was needed. Chances are that even if you didn’t have the pleasure of knowing Dan personally, you probably ran into him at some point out on the trails.

Dan was diagnosed with a terminal illness in early 2019, and sadly, passed away in 2020. The TMBC, in honour of Dan’s involvement in and around Jubilee Park, voted to name a new trail in his namesake. Danomite, a play on words, was named after Dan, and his favourite trail in Derby Tasmania; 2017 EWS trail of the year “Detonate”. Danomite was officially opened in mid 2020 with a memorial ride, his Sons, leading the pack. Danomite also formed part of the 2020 Gravity Enduro course, as the first trail of the Queen stage, the longest, hardest, crux stage of the event.

Construction works on Danomite began in 2019, this time by emerging local lads Trailbiz, and TMBC volunteers. The trail was originally designed to link Top Shelf, Anonymous and Defibrillator into a long green rated loop. This proved to be unachievable as the 105m elevation loss over the comparatively short 1.2km was just too great an elevation drop to enable a green rating. What eventually formed was a fast flowy blue rated, one way trail, that both rewarded aggressive riders with more and more speed the harder they pushed, but could be ridden mellow enough for intermediate riders, and beginner riders that were starting to push their boundaries. The trail snakes its way down the mountain for 500m before steadily descending along the ridgeline for the next 600m or so, and finally concluding at the Hyper Frenzy junction.

Mike Hawley, a.k.a “The Oakey Creek Ringer” designed and handcrafted the bell, placed at the start of the trail, as a memorial to Dan. A poem inscribed on the bell invites each rider to ring the bell for Dan, and reflect on the man that gave so much for the Toowoomba mountain bike community.

“Be happy, find good in everyone, and live your best life” Dan O’Neill