CRANKWORX ROTORUA
How did we
get here ?
£ Rider: Louis
Reboul
The much-anticipated Slopestyle
contest is just the tip of the iceberg
at Crankworx. The five-day festival
is a celebration of practically every
discipline involving straight bars and
26-29-inch wheels. After its birth
at the mountain biking mecca of
Whistler, Canada in 2004, it’s grown
into the most prestigious event on
the MTB calendar. 2011 saw the
event expand into France with the
insanely beautiful Crankworx Les
2 Alpes, and now, making it a truly
global phenomenon, the promoters
decided to push their roots deep
into the Southern Hemisphere.
With the thermally active town
of RotoVegas (as the locals call
it) building a huge name for itself
as a bucket list mountain biking
destination on the world stage – as
well as it holding the World DH
Championships back in 2006 –
Crankworx seemed like the perfect
fit.
The Skyline MTB Gravity Park, a
steep gondola accessed hillside
infested with DH trails and a worldrenowned luge track, was soon
locked in as the venue and the
organisers began the mammoth
task of bringing the Olympics of
mountain biking to the deep, dark
armpit of the Southern Hemisphere.
As for the athletes who made the
effort to travel halfway around the
world to Middle Earth, they were left
dumbstruck with the quality of riding
that was on offer.
“This place is insane,” beamed
Rachel Atherton after her solid win
in the women’s DH competition.
“The dirt is just perfect and loamy,
the crowd during our downhill race
was one of the loudest and craziest
I’ve ever seen, and everyone here is
so chilled out and happy. It was well
worth the long plane trip to come
here and experience this.”
USA’s second-placed Slopestyle
comp shredder Nicholi Rogatkin
was also in awe of the venue and
how smoothly the inaugural event
went: “I’ve had an unbelievable
week here,” he smiled. “The
setting, the weather, the people,
the course… it’s too good! I’ve had
way too much fun here and I’m
absolutely coming back next year.”
For the local Kiwi riders though,
Crankworx Rotorua was an
opportunity to show off their
stomping ground; it’s all well and
good talking about it, but it’s not
until people witness it first-hand
that they realise just how good New
Zealanders have it.
“I think that’s been one of the
things I’ve enjoyed the most, really,”
said South Island freerider Conor
Macfarlane. “Crankworx has drawn
some of the biggest names in
the sport to come down here and
we’ve been able to show them our
backyard. They’re all amazed at the
quality of riding we have here and
I think in the future we could see
more Northern Hemisphere riders
escape their winter and come down
here to ride.” u
Thomas Genon:
“We’ve just come off our winter season
and we don’t know what the other guys
have been working on, so there’s a lot
of stress at this event. But honestly, I
think Rotorua is the best round of the
Diamond Series FMB we’ve ever had.
The track was good, we had enough
time to practice and the atmosphere
and the people were just awesome. I
loved it.”
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