Singlespeed mountain biking returns to Rotorua in 2015
4 May 2014
The most colourful and raucous event on the national mountain bike calendar is returning to Rotorua in 2015.
The Pig & Whistle New Zealand Singlespeed Championships will be raced over the Whakarewarewa Forest trail network late in April. At stake will be bragging rights and the customary tattoos for the men's and women's champions.
But there will be a special twist to next year's event as it will also be the Anzac Singlespeed Championships.
Graeme Simpson from the Rotorua Singlespeed Society, the club that will host the event, says Anzac Day was selected for the event in 2008 as it was a long weekend and a gap in a very busy race calendar.
We also organised a ride to the Anzac Day dawn service at Ohinemutu Marae on the shores of Lake Rotorua. There was an excellent turn-out and it was the same when we ran the champs in 2009.
Since then the weekend closest to Anzac Day has become the traditional date for the Singlespeed Championships.
It's important that the champs move around the country, but with the 100th Anzac Day commemoration in 2015 we really wanted to bring it home to Rotorua, said Paul Laing, from the Singlespeed Society.
We always have a good showing of Aussies at our events and we hope to have more, next year, adds Laing. We've already had quite a few put their hands up.
There has been a dramatic jump in the numbers of Australians travelling to Rotorua to enjoy the city's world-class mountain bike trails over the last five years since direct Air New Zealand flights from Sydney were introduced in 2009.