Well, its about time this started to happen! Its not often so much good news drops on one day, but this week we had an avalanche of awesomeness pump all over the MTB community in NZ. Two new lift assisted Mountain Bike parks?!!! BOOOOM!!

As I outlined in the Leg 2 and then Leg 3 of the DNST earlier this year, the riding back in NZ is all time at the moment (I so sound like I’m in my 20’s when I say that), well, its about to get a whole lot more fucking rad with a couple of new announcements that I never saw coming.

First up, its been announced that Skyline Rotorua will be opening up access on the slopes of Mt Ngongotaha (zero chance I can pronounce that). If you’ve been to Rots, you probably spent all your time riding in the Whaka forest, and who could blame you, its awesome… But having a gondola assisted uplift option not only 1000% justifies my Demo purchase (Just call me the Warren Buffet of Bike acquisition), but gives shredders from all over a massive DH stiffy. After all, this is the site where the MTB World Champs were held in 2006! Yes, an extremely early version of DN was on hand back then, my first outing stalking PRO’s and taking photos of the Elite XC girls:

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Life before an iPhone… Weird and low quality photos

Get used to this view, not often seen in the MTB world, soon it will be Instagramed to fuck as people roll up to start shredding this untapped hero dirt landscape. Also the scene of one of Sam Hill’s multiple World Champ victories:

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So much better than pushing…

Alas, all I had from attending the World Champs was XC Nerd photos, but was cool to be on hand to see Absalon win his 18th World Champs gold medal, massive throw back:

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God damn Frenchies bombing it again…

Its scheduled to open in July this year and get this, will be open year round. So, get that new Demo 8 AND a Nomad Carbon and start fevering. Although, July is a cunt of a time to go there, so perhaps wait till summer. I am beside myself with fever that this is happening! The only downside is we all now need to take two bikes on our Rots trips and go for twice as long… How sad.

But wait… Holy shit there is more!!! Not to be outdone, CHARCHAR has also got in on the act with the announcement that a Canadian company (obviously the one that missed out on Whistler or running any of the countless bike parks in BC) is going to spend $22m or so to open a massive lift assisted bike park in the Port Hills! RAD.

And, thank fuck for that I say, as you may recall I suffered greatly at the hands of Mad Markus as we had a massive day climbing on the big bikes there earlier this year:

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“Sigh… this bearded pussy is faking another photo break to slow me down…”

This is SO massively cool… Getting a year round lift access to the trails and terrain up here is an MTB wet dream… Time to buy a bike shop in CHCH, perhaps even one up this way:

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Soon to be overrun with EPIC shredding and chairlift action

I’m having trouble not pissing my pants with excitement… This opens up SO many options for MTB epic road trips. As if we weren’t spoiled enough already back at home base… You can now fly into Auckland, ride the FourForty MTB park, head to Rots and hit the new park and Whaka forest, pass through Welly and all its famous spots before nailing the end of your trip with CHCH and qTown shredding! That’s not to mention all the other crazy shit in-between!!!

Fuuuuuuuuuck! Get me that new Carbon Nomad Stat! Book those trips now people, summer 2014/15 is going to be INSANE.

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