Thousands of happy bikers of all sorts
3 March 2013
The inaugural Rotorua Bike Festival is over and planning is underway for a bigger, brighter event in 2014.
The 10-day festival (February 8 to 17) featured a full range of biking activity, opening with Bike Polo and the Shweeb World Championships, and closing with the New Zealand Mountain Bike National Championships and Giant 2W Gravity Enduro.
Rotorua District Council (RDC) event manager Martin Croft said the event offered road rides, fun rides for kids, quirky events such as The Redwoods Coast and Bicycle Speedway, to really serious competition at BMX Rotorua and Mountain Bike National Championships.
"We said it would be a celebration of cycling - and it was! There were around 1,500 entrants on the last weekend alone. Over the week we estimate around 3,000 people participated in the 24 festival events."
However, he said it doesn't stop there.
"Event organisers and the festival team were discussing ways to fine-tune things in 2014 - sometimes before their event had even finished."
Mr Croft said RDC and Rotorua Trust have announced they will once again support the festival next year, which allows the team to focus on the festival straight after this year's successful event.
"We can keep the momentum going and the potential for the festival really is unlimited," he said.