The bikes are back in town
From the end of this week the Queenstown Bike Festival will take over town for ten days. Each day is jam-packed with biking events for all skills and ages, and events include racing, jump jams, a photography competition, and a variety of unique activities. The location of the events will be scattered around Queenstown, and include Coronet Peak, Skyline and Cardrona.
The aim of the festival is to bring riders and spectators to Tāhuna, and increase the awareness of the network of trails and mountain bike locations that we offer. The festival will start with a bang with the first scheduled event, the Peak Vert Heli Bike – this fundraiser will have participants riding 1100 vertical metres from the top of Coronet Peak to the bottom of Skippers Canyon before getting helicoptered back to the top. Some other unusual events on the schedule include the Freestyle Bike Bungy, the 16” Pub Champs at Cargo, and the Lake Jump and Log Ride.
“They’ll be an opening party at the Kawarau Bridge Bungee. We’re doing a bungee jump ramp – you’re jumping off the bridge, attached to a bungee cord and trying to do a freestyle jump; a trick. Your bike’s connected to you as well – it’s not going to end up in the river.
“We’re also doing a 16” Pub Champs – it’s grownups racing around a bit of a track set up in the garden of Cargo’s Arthurs Point on a 16-inch kids’ bike. Very lighthearted, but it’s been done years prior when the Bike Fest used to happen and it’s quite a hit – just having a beer and watching your mates race on a kids’ bike,” says one of the event organisers, Emmerson Wilken.
One of the events that is important to the festival in 2023 is the Slopestyle in the Mini Dream area at Wynyard Bike Park. This year, they’ve applied to the Freeride Mountain Bike Association (FMBA) – the world governing body for the sport of freeride mountain biking to have separate categories for female and male riders, something which hasn’t happened often in the past. The FMBA sanctions events that are part of the FMB World Tour in four different categories, including slopestyle, and determines the annual World Champion.
“We’re actually having a specific male and specific female category, which is the first time it’s ever happened in New Zealand and probably only the third time internationally, where there’s been a specific women’s class in slopestyle. And why we’ve done that is we’ve actually got so many good female riders in this class that already base themselves in Queenstown – the sport is growing like crazy. The female progression in mountain biking is going through the roof at the moment, so we’re definitely quite excited to be hosting that event.”
The festival will wrap up with the annual McGazza Fest – a weekend in memory of local mountain biking legend Kelly McGarry, which has been running for several years. He was a good mate to many in the mountain biking community and the weekend includes a chainless race, a children’s coaching session, a jump jam and a memorial ride.
Emmerson also wants to thank the community for making this happen, “Between businesses supporting, giving us a venue to use, or coming along with prizes, money, or sponsorship, and the volunteers – a big part of it is those people who make it happen.”
Queenstown Bike Festival will run from Friday 20 – Sun 29 January at various locations. There’s still spots available for volunteers to help out, too. For more information on how to volunteer or the schedule of events, head to queenstownbikefestival.co.nz
