If you haven’t watched a dual slalom race, you should. It is fast, hard-hitting action, with fast and (sometimes) loose corners, and tight margins. The only thing better than watching a dual slalom race is riding a dual slalom track. Like a pump track, your skills will improve the more you ride a slalom track.
Yet, for the most part, they are short. But not the new dual slalom track at Pine Ridge Bike Park in Nannup, Western Australia. One of the greatest gravity racers of all time, Sam Hill, has a trail-building company, Sam Hill Signature Trail, that has been working on what may be the world’s longest slalom course to date.
More than half a mile of dual slalom
“At 850 meters long, we haven’t found another public dual slalom track anywhere in the world that’s longer,” Dave du Plessis, Operations Manager at Sam Hill Signature Trail, told Singletracks via email. “We think it could be the world’s longest public-to-ride dual slalom.”
The track will essentially consist of what we expect from a slalom course: berms, rollers, and doubles. Speed is the name of the game. But the most significant difference from other slaloms is the distance. At 850 meters long, the course will be over half a mile by U.S. standards — longer than a lot of standard trails.
According to du Plessis, the slalom track was deliberately left to the end of the project because the trail crew took a long time “working out the best way to build it.” Constructing berms that rode well but would also manage significant water runoff took the crew the longest time. He told us that the area where Pine Ridge Bike Park is located receives little or no rainfall in some years, causing hand-built features to break down quickly. Yet, when it does rain, it can be a deluge, causing even further erosion. Because of this, machine building was the way to go.
“Every feature and berm was machine-built and compacted by track rolling with the excavator, smacked in and shaped using a tilt hitch, hand-raked back to a solid surface, and then finished with a plate compactor to seal everything,” du Plessis explained. “It’s a slow and demanding process that requires experience on the machine, but the result is a surface that’s incredibly durable.”
The other difficult aspect is Western Australia’s pea gravel. The pebble-like material can be found everywhere, and is about “as close to riding on ball bearings as you can get,” du Plesis said. He suggested the pea gravel might be why the legendary Sam Hill has historically done so well on muddy tracks — if you think mud is bad, take a crack at Western Australia’s pea gravel.
In the areas that were particularly heavy with pea gravel, Sam Hill Signature Trail excavated well below the surface to the underlying clay. They mixed both materials, creating a surface for the track that compacts incredibly well and will withstand heavy use year after year.
“I honestly can’t wait to see people racing their mates down it. It turned out even better than we’d hoped and is without doubt the jewel in the crown of the Pine Ridge network,” du Plessis said.
From fairways to singletrack
Along with what might be the world’s longest dual slalom track is 16.5km (~10 miles) of singletrack at Pine Ridge Bike Park. The park is located in the Shire of Nannup in Western Australia, with the trails funded by the Australian Government through the Regional Recovery Partnership Program.
Pine Ridge consists of six gravity-focused trails, two XC loops, and a skills area. Overall, the park is beginner- and intermediate-friendly, with about 95% of the trail system leaning that way. Just about 5% of the trails are rated advanced.
But, as you might be able to tell from the photos, riders can still get a pretty good boost on Pine Ridge’s intermediate options.
From the 1980s until 2002, the site where Pine Ridge now stands was a golf course. Unfortunately for golfers, du Plessis told us that a fire destroyed the golf course’s clubhouse, effectively ending sport in the area. Mountain bikers would eventually take up where golfers left off, but not without challenges.
“The site presented some unique challenges,” du Plessis told us. “We had limited elevation to work with and no clearing permit, so we had to be creative in making riders feel like they were descending a mountain while weaving through the old golf course fairways.”
Despite the challenges, du Plessis says that he is stoked on the outcome. Ultimately, Sam Hill Signature Trail’s approach was simple. Focusing on progression, the largest feature on one of the green trails became the smallest feature on one of the blue trails.
“It creates a progression that’s fun, rewarding, and accessible for a wide range of riders,” he explained.
Pine Ridge is scheduled to open in September 2026, with a documentary film about the build scheduled to be released before the opening.
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