Share the Ride - Rotorua New Zealand
Since the beginning of this year, Pinkbike, Mountain Bike Rotorua, Ride in Gear and Giant Bicycles New Zealand have teamed up with a whole bunch of cool ladies and gents to make the inaugural Pinkbike Share the Ride program for NZ an absolutely amazing experience.
Lead by Mark "Cabin" Leishman with an amazingly positive and experienced team of great people (Marcello, Geeza, Louis Hamilton, Carl Jones, Oli Shaw, Connor Hamilton, Anton Cooper), the crew have taken the Pinkbike Share the Ride program in a different direction. Originally set up to give out bikes and get more people riding, we put our heads together as a team and thought we could take this idea and make it better.
We worked with Sport Bay of Plenty to identify ten locals who could needed to be introduced to the amazing place that is Redwoods, Whakarewarewa Forest. We then spent the next 10 or so weeks not just teaching skills and familiarizing these kids with the forest, but their families too.
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 The kids out on a shuttle evening. |
 | During that same time, we also ran another program called Share the Ride in Schools. We worked with Kaitao Middle School to get every student in the school on a mt bike tour with us at no charge. They were buzzing and we already know kids have been out and about in the forest with their families now that they know how cool and easily accessible it is. We are stoked to work with such cool people in our community and look forward to sharing the ride with more of our peeps really soon. - Mark Leishman, Rotorua in Gear/Cycle Skills Coach. |
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| Mid ride stoke from a group of kids from Kaitao. |
Once the families had been through the whole program, the kids, care of Pinkbike and Giant Bicycles, were each presented with their very own mountain bike and a choice helmet from Bell at Crankworx Rotorua.
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| TK sharing the love towards Marcello upon receiving his new bike. |
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| Lucy and Kaylyn looking at what filter suits best before posting to Instagram. |
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| Pulling out all the others names to give himself a fair chance of winning the one of the spot prizes. |
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| TK super stoked on his new bike. He asked if the presentation had finished yet so he could go ride his bike in the Whakawerawera Forest. |
The kids from the Share the Ride program get out for a rip after the ceremony.
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| Wet skinnies? No problems. |
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| Pushing hard to reach the top of the course ahead of Zoe Gelatly. |
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| Tongue Out, Flat Out. |
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| Little dude, Little Wheels, Big Speeds. Dad was chasing after him like crazy (dad not shown). |
| Share the Ride - Rotorua turned into a genuinely awesome experience, as our take on the initiative allowed us to really share the passion and experience of Mountainbiking. MTB converts live in a world dominated by flashy gear and the latest technology, but if we think about it, our passion really comes from the sport at its most basic. It's easy to forget how awesome it was exploring trails with friends on a basic hard tail. It is infectious, and that's what we endeavoured to share. Over the course of 5 weeks, 10 youth (accompanied by family members) learned skills, the trails, history of the forest, trail etiquette, and even some maintenance. Most importantly they shared fun and laughter and got to experience and appreciate the amazing resources that are the Rotorua trails. Even in a place like Rotorua where "everyone mountain bikes" it's easily missed that the demographic enjoying the experience is often quite narrow. Share the Ride allowed us to reach out further into the wider community. Sharing the simple pleasures MTB can provide. Cultivating growth at the real grassroots. - Mark Leishman, Rotorua in Gear/Cycle Skills Coach. |
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| "You are looking fast out there buddy!, Are you going to win?" "I'm going to be number 1" They breed racers early down in Rotorua. |
| We can't wait to do it again - Mark Leishman, Rotorua in Gear/Cycle Skills Coach. |
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| Left to Right. Vance, TK, Bailey, Max, Jorden, Alan Golds, Geezer and Marcello, Liam, Lucy, Maya, and Kaylyn. Missing from the photo - Zavia. |
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| This is every single child who got to go out on a mountain bike ride thanks to the Share the Ride Program in Rotorua. |
Giant Bicycles New Zealand
Mountain Bike Rotorua
MENTIONS: @giant, @BellBikeHelmets
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12 Comments
- 23 0
steviethekiwi
(May 26, 2015 at 14:05)
The mountain bike world always manages to restore my faith in humanity! Awesome work Pinkbike!
- 9 0
Petemoss
(May 27, 2015 at 6:13)
THIS. STORY! Makes your forget about your $5000+ bike, wheel size debate, kit colour, slack head angle debate etc., etc., and why you started biking in the first place. Love and pure joy of the sport. This takes me back to when I received my McKinley mtb from Sports Experts in the 80's. Happiest kid in town and I rode that bike into the ground. Planted the seed for my love of the sport today. I'm sure this kind donation will do the same for some of these kids..........Bravo, we need more of this!
- 8 0
shimanodx
(May 26, 2015 at 21:02)
I just hope they don't leave their bikes in front of the dairy - "nek minnit" .........
- 5 0
JoshNZL
(May 26, 2015 at 18:43)
Marcello is such a great guy. Easily the nicest and most generous person I've ever met! Great to see heaps of kids getting introduced to mountain biking, especially in Rotorua!
- 2 0
Cabin
(May 27, 2015 at 13:09)
@FurryCrew What is it that motivates you to get on here and make negative comments about a really positive program and outcomes? That's the only sad thing happening here. It's been great to see these kids out in the forest on their bikes since the program finished.
- 3 0
loloTHUNDAH
(May 26, 2015 at 21:08)
Getting them a Talon as their first bike.. Imagine the fun they'd have on the trails 
Those genuine smiles on their faces are gold. Keep it up!
Those genuine smiles on their faces are gold. Keep it up!- 3 0
Serenity-Now
(May 26, 2015 at 17:05)
Great article. Good to see Marcello doing what he does best.
- 2 0
RatHunter83
(May 27, 2015 at 6:04)
This is great! Love seeing the kiddo's enjoying the ride and having fun! Props to Share the Ride.
- 2 0
monsroyale
(May 28, 2015 at 17:53)
You legends. This is so good to see. Thanks Pinkbike.
- 3 0
philipmcm
(May 26, 2015 at 19:13)
TK looks like a baller!
- 2 0
DaDawg
(May 26, 2015 at 21:01)
Ah i remember my first MTB... Those child's must be stoked...!
- 4 3
FurryCrew
(May 27, 2015 at 5:27)
Sad thing is, I've already seen two of these bikes at the local Pawnshop :-*(
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