News & Blog Testimonial Video November 11, 2025

Digging Trails and Building Dreams: Josh Green’s Journey from Racing to Trail Crafting

From offroad racing champion to trail builder, Josh Green has swapped racing tracks for rugged bushland. Armed with his Cat 301.7 mini excavator, Green now sculpts mountain bike trails across challenging terrain, combining technical skill with creative vision. After a decorated racing career and years of coaching, he’s found a new passion—designing dirt trails that thrill riders of all levels.

Josh Green was on his Cat 301.7 mini excavator, deep in the bush and busy digging a mountain bike trail, when Earthmovers & Excavators gave him a call to have a chat about his digger.

Well known on the motocross racing circuit, Green has since built up a bike coaching business called Off-road Advantage, with a sideline in building trails. This is where his Cat 301.7 comes in—its manoeuvrability on difficult terrain allows him to sculpt trails out of challenging landscapes.

“When I was a professional dirt bike racer I had my little Cat machine just to clean up because I used to race through the bush, which would get trashed,” he says.

“I had the excavator to trim and tidy that up. From there I started building mountain bike trails for people and that’s now become a full-time business.”

From Racing to Coaching

Green has lived and breathed racing since the age of seven when he received his first bike and started competing at a local club.

“It was only a matter of time before I was proper hooked, and just wanted to race bikes every weekend,” he laughs.

“That turned into traveling the country with my family doing motocross and eventually I got into Enduro [endurance] racing.”

After winning a series of Australian championships and representing Australia on the world stage, Green retired in 2023 to focus on his coaching business, which he runs from a property in Stroud, NSW.

“I now travel the country, and I’ve had contracts with the Australian Defence Force, and a bunch of different opportunities to coach different riders,” he says.

“I now do a lot of the track inspections at racing schools and advise them on safety guidelines. Having been involved in racing for 20-odd years it’s quite cool to be on the other side of the fence now and making a difference to the sport.”

New Opportunities

Like many, the COVID pandemic forced Green to change track as lockdowns and event restrictions put a temporary halt to his racing and coaching. This led him to operating machinery more regularly.

“There was a small company that had just started building trails in my local area, and I approached them and asked if they had any work,” Green says.

“I learnt how to drive an excavator through them and, once COVID ended, I went back into racing but decided to buy my own machine.”

“I’ve driven a lot of machines, but when I hired a Cat excavator I fell in love with it straight away. From there I called WesTrac and bought my first machine and I wouldn’t use anything else now.”

The Perfect Fit

With Green’s work building mountain bike trails, the terrain has a major influence on the size of machine he can use. His equipment of choice is a 1.9-tonne Cat 301.7 mini excavator with a 15.7kW (21hp) engine and a dig depth of 2.5m.

“It’s perfectly built for what I do,” he says.

“I also like the open cab. As I’m on the side of a mountain most of the time in pretty steep country, having less weight up high is good. The power and the comfort of the machine is second to none.”

“To explain it to someone who doesn’t ride bikes, it’s like designing a slide at a water park, but we’re building it out of dirt,” he says.

Green says building bike trails is a mix of imagination and working with the landscape to create exciting paths for clients.

“Then you add in jumps and features for variation. Unlike the slides though, we actually want the water to stay off the track, so we also put drains in where necessary.”

“You’ll be building it for a certain level of rider, but you still want it to be fun for everyone who’s riding. For instance, I build a lot of private backyard trails for people, and they’ve got a four-year-old kid, but they’ve also got a bunch of middle-aged dads that want to go and have fun too.”

Josh Building Tracks With His Mini

“In my digger, I do the excavation and compaction, and then we have a follow crew with rakes and shovels who fine-tune what I’ve done.”

Built for the Bush

With the steep terrain and remote locations—often in national parks or state forests—Green says the Cat 301.7 has enough power to dig trails and move rocks, while being light and compact enough to traverse challenging landscapes.

“Even though we’re excavating a trail, you still don’t want to go and clear a 20m-wide path through it, so we can’t go in there with a bulldozer,” he says.

“Having a smaller machine reduces the impact that we’re having on the land.”

“With other brands of machinery, I’ve gotten to a point where I can’t dig a rock out, or I can’t dig the soil because it’s too hard. Whereas, with the Cat excavator, it’s been no problem, which was a big decider for me in buying this machine.”

“Most people can’t walk on some of the terrain we do trails on so it’s pretty impressive where we can take this machine.”

“Also, some of the trails can be 10km in the bush, and I’ve got to be able to get it in there. With the machine only being two tonnes I can tow it behind my Land Cruiser and then drive it into most places.”

“Also, with the small machine being light, if it is boggy you’ve got less chance of it sinking into the ground.”

Josh Jumping His Mini

Backup Support

Supporting Green and his Cat machine is dealer WesTrac, based in Newcastle, which he describes as having “every part under the sun” in stock.

“I’ve had excavators in the past where we had to wait a month or two for parts, so that’s a big thing for me now,” he says.

“With WesTrac having workshops and service crews pretty much everywhere I go on the east coast, that makes life easy for me.”

Service is also a major draw, with Green happy to highlight the positive ongoing relationship he has with his local branch.

“The WesTrac guys go above and beyond,” he says.

“If I have even a slight problem I just contact my sales guy and he’s all over it. They touch base with me and ask me about my plans.”

“When I was thinking of upgrading my machine they let me know of upcoming deals and interest rates. It’s good to have that contact and feel like they’re looking after me with the best deal they can.”

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