Super summer season for the bikes
Queenstown and Wanaka’s summer mountain biking seasons are coming to a close. Cardrona and Coronet closed at the start of this month and Skyline’s season officially ended this past weekend. The trails have been abuzz with bike enthusiasts in the first season with borders open since Covid-19.
We’re fortunate to be one of the world’s top mountain biking destination and boast a large diversity of trails for all ages and abilities. This season was jam-packed with events – the 2023 Mountain Bike National Championships took place at Coronet Peak, Crankworx Summer Series toured the region, and Red Bull Foxhunt rolled into Cardrona for its first time in New Zealand.
Additionally, mountain biking history was made in January at the Queenstown Bike Festival. For the first time in the country, a female bronze freeride mountain bike (FMB) event was held. Wynyard Bike Park was taken over by the Mons Royale Slopestyle event where four entered the female youth jam and nine entered the open female category – Rotorua’s Robin Goomes won the event.
Coronet Peak just wrapped up their fourth season of mountain biking and it’s been a great one for them. They first opened the bike park in 2019 in the lead up to the pandemic and are happy that they’ve been able to continue to grow since then.
“It was certainly our best season ever, in terms of participation and revenue, which was great because after three years battling with Covid on and off it was nice to see,” says Nigel Kerr the Ski Area Manager of Coronet Peak.
“It was a breakthrough season for us in many ways – sightseeing is a big part of it but the biking really continued to grow on the back of last year – we’re feeling really good, we’re feeling really strong. We’ve got a good option here that fits into the Queenstown market really well.”
Coronet have mostly seen locals and visitors from within New Zealand at their bike park this year, but they’re slowly seeing the return of international visitors. They’ve credited this year’s success in part to their jam-packed events schedule.
“We’re becoming well-established and more known – we had some pretty big events this year, such as the Coro1200 Series, which are really key local mountain biking events. We also hosted both the New Zealand Mountain Biking Nationals and the South Island Schools Event.
“Those events are really good benchmarks for where we’re getting to in terms of what we can do and how we can run events – there’s a really good vibe from those. I think they’re helping to amplify our reach to other riders or riders thinking of visiting the area,” says Nigel.
While the Gondola’s may have stopped and the chairlifts have shut down until winter, the region has plenty of bike trails that are open year-round.For more information on what’s happening in the community and the trails on offer you can join the Queenstown Mountain Bike Club at queenstownmtb.co.nz
