For Belinda and Tim, the focus of their first year in event management is the mountain bike community in Rotorua and all round New Zealand.
The Nduro Sustainable Trails programme will donate funds from each event to the Rotorua Mountain Bike Club to support trail building and maintenance. As event organisers, they already pay fees to forest management to use the trails and the donations will be on top of those.
"We've also set up the Nduro Dream Foundation," says Tim. "A percentage of our profits will go to help the people that enter our events chase their sporting dreams at home or abroad. If they are heading to the world champs or raising funds for a charity, Nduro will be along for the ride to make that dream come true."
There's a lot of hard work running any events, but a lot of satisfaction, too.
"In the build up to the events, you hear and see people training to achieve their goals," Tim continues.
"Then on race day there is something very special about being part of their triumph as they finish."
More information and online entry for the 24 Hours of Nduro: www.nduro24.co.nz
Hot X Buns - there's a story behind that trail name. Back in the early 2000s a group of local mountain bikers were in Zippy Central enjoying a coffee and wondering what to do on a drizzly Easter Good Friday. Instead of riding, a couple of carloads headed into the forest to start the build of a new trail at the top of Direct Road.
Annika and Rob Smail, Graeme Murray, Dean Watson, Carolyn Scherger, Rick Todd, Nigel Robinson were the team and we opened up the first section in half a day - the loop around the crown of the hill. Over the next 12 months, the rest of the trail was chipped out with spades, rakes and hoes, with a lot of help from Red McHale and the Department of Corrections crews and Claude Manihera who worked for the forest managers at the time.
Hot X Buns is rugged, challenging, ungroomed and not for everyone - which is why those who ride it regularly, love it.
Have a relaxing Easter break.
