Queenstown Bike Festival - Backflip to Open (Water)

The long roof of the Earnslaw is asphalted and has regular structural ridges every 1.5 metres (5 feet) in places so we had to think of something quick and practical before the first wave of tourists jumped on the first sailing at 10am.

As nothing could be fixed to the boat, sheets of 1200mm by 2400mm ply were lapped together with short blocks under each sheet for (sketchy) yet functional support and the ramp attached to the ply sheets so the whole structure could be removed just as quickly as it was put together! The ply sheets and the McGarry built ramp were lifted to the roof on the Coal Tractor as was Kelly's Bike...

Once put together, Kelly scoped out how it would run, and did some stomping on the actual jump to ensure stability. The man was happy and ready to go.


A ribbon stretched between 2 smoke stacks was ceremoniously cut to denote the start of the festival. We did talk about running a chainsaw through an old bike frame at the start of the event, but although the powers that be were relaxed they weren't that relaxed about it.


Queenstown could not have looked more picture box perfect as the sun came out, the lake was glassy calm and the cloud formations that are so typical of New Zealand (Aotearoa, the Maori name for New Zealand means land of the long white cloud). The flip blew the crowd away. Queenstown is the town of adrenaline activities, so we nabbed a well established local jet boat operator K-Jet to be the rescue boat responsible for getting Kelly and his bike out of the freezing cold Lake Wakatipu after the jump.



The festival is ON!