New Zealand’s Slopestyle star, Kelly McGarry, and Elevate’s Tom Hey are on site at the Skyline Gravity Park getting ready to set Crankworx Rotorua on course to make history.
In addition to a successful career as a star athlete on the freeride mountain bike scene, McGarry and his business partner, trail builder Tom Hey, operate Elevate Trail Building, and are fast developing a reputation as world class trail-building aficionados.
The pair have designed and built courses for the Colorado Freeride Festival and Teva Slopestyle in Queenstown and have accepted the challenge to turn the Crankworx Rotorua slopestyle course into a legendary event.
“
There couldn’t be a better team to tackle the task of building Oceania’s first permanent slopestyle course and turning the Rotorua dirt into trail gold,” says
Takurua Mutu, Crankworx director. “
Hey has built trails for over a decade and McGarry is an international slopestyle star who was previously a carpenter, and as a result, has developed his own formula for designing world class competition trails.”
The course will take athletes approximately 1:30 minutes to traverse, and the lip drops, right and left-hand hip-jumps, epic step-ups and cannon logs they’re working into the natural contours of Mt. Ngongotaha should make for a flowy ride, primed for the monster aeronautics that make slopestyle the Crankworx marquee event.
McGarry says he’s learnt a lot about Slopestyle courses having travelled around the world competing for the last 10 years.
“
I have ridden some awesome courses and I have ridden some terrible ones, and I have learnt a lot in regards to what works and what doesn't − and what riders like to shred,” he says.
If there’s one feature unique to the Skyline Rotorua Gravity Park, it’s the dirt. Rotorua’s volcanic soil is one third air, one third rock and one third water, meaning it drains well for a clean-riding trail. The frequent rainfall in Rotorua, and forest canopy, also ensure enough moisture stays in the soil to save competitors storming a 25-foot drop from suffering through a dust bowl.
Crankworx Rotorua runs March 25-29, culminating in the Slopestyle on
Sunday, March 29 at 12:30 p.m. NZDT. Events include the Australasia Whip-Off Champs, Rotorua Pump Track Challenge presented by RockShox, Mons Royale Dual Speed and Style, Rotorua Downhill presented by iXS, Giant Toa Rotorua Enduro and the Rotorua Slopestyle.
There will also be a Bikes and Beats Music Festival, featuring New Zealand’s top artists, and a Kidsworx event to get families involved. Stay tuned for details at
crankworx.com To get your tickets, visit
Ticketmaster.
Trailforks.com
It's pretty serious for all of those top guys, even if they repeat "I'm just having fun" every 10 minutes. They love riding their bikes, and realise that if they want to keep getting paid to do so, then they have to be on top of their game. That means laying down incredible contest runs under a lot of pressure.
I'll guarantee you that every single time Semenuk walks away with a win (which is almost all the time) he's in a better mood with a straight face than every one of the losers faking a smile. I'd bet my life on it.
As far as the added stress goes, yeah maybe that will stress more of the riders, but maybe they should also be glad that the sport is growing, it's another opportunity to win something, make some scrilla & do well where another rider they fear (Semenuk) may not even bother to show up. More contests is actually better for lesser riders trying to win the overall because if the better ones don't show up to as many contests then the lesser stands a chance. Look at Pilgrim winning the overall, that only happed because he did way more contests that year than Sem did. Sem basically let him have it. Maybe that's the real reason you're so butt fvcked because you & everyone knows that's true too.
Silver, gold, Diamond?
It's crankworks sponsored so I'm guessing at least gold level event.
Did anyone else pickup the articles struggles to write up a kiwi accent? I think 4th Paragraph end of line two the hey is actually meant to be he....LOL
you guys in NZ gonna have such a RAD event!!! glad for this new CWX location!
(even if it think les 2alpes, france sucks)