Metz, the man behind Zerode Bikes, scooped the Design and Innovation Award in the mountain bike category for his Katipo bike - a bike designed and built in a small workshop in Rotorua.
"The thing that's unique about this bike is rather than a series of gears at the rear wheel, it actually has a gear box," Metz said.
"All of the shifting and everything is contained within this unit built into the frame, much more along motorcycle lines."
The Design and Innovation Awards is the international bike industry's leading award, highlighting the most exciting of the latest products in the industry, tested and assessed by an experienced team of riders, designers and engineers.
The thing that's unique about this bike is rather than a series of gears at the rear wheel, it actually has a gear box.
A long-time mountain biking enthusiast, Metz has used his own experience to design his award-winning bike. He used to rebuild his own bike every three or four years and about 15 years ago started building his own gear boxes.
"It was basically riding this personal bike in the forest that attracted a lot of interest. Then I started modifying parts to use as gear boxes for my first production line of bikes."
The Design and Innovation Award judges commented on how quiet and smooth the bike was to ride.
"The system is low-maintenance and the belt-drive is incredibly durable, replacing a conventional chain. In addition, this concept significantly reduces the unsprung mass of the rear-end, which in turn has a positive effect on the overall performance of the suspension.
"Once you get used to shifting gears without putting load on the drivetrain, you'll enjoy a whole new way of ripping the trails – in complete silence."
Metz is more than just a bike designer and builder, he also played a key role in establishing trails in the forest.
"There were a few years there that I spent quite a bit of time in the forest hand-building trails, I'm not a huge fan of machine-built trails. First of all, there's the brief from the client which these days is the [Rotorua] Trails Trust and previously was the [Rotorua] Mountain Bike Club.
"Obviously, you have to build what they want but you have a fair bit of creative license within that. I think a really good goal for a trail is to appeal to as broad a range of rider as possible. I think that's something that falls down in the forest a bit now - you can build a grade two trail that really good riders like to ride and we've seen some really good examples of that but some not so good examples as well."
His background in racing and trail building was helpful when designing bikes.
"I've done a bit of racing in the past and I think being able to push your bike hard helps you design a good bike. I think it's the same with trail building, it's a constant process of looking back up the trail, figuring out how fast you imagine it's going to be once it's fully worn, applying that to the feature you're working on then looking at the trail ahead to make sure it's all quite seamless."
Rotorua mountain bike apparel store Nzo owner Gary Sullivan has seen and ridden his fair share of mountain bikes and said Metz winning the award was an impressive achievement considering he was up against some global power houses.
"It's unusual for someone in the bike industry in New Zealand to get that. The fact that Rob designed the thing, got it to market and has continued to develop it for quite a few years now is nothing short of amazing.
"He's up against global brands and all the marketing and media exposure they get. The benefits of the bike are quite significant because the maintenance is low for the distance you can cover and the weight of the gear shifting mechanism being in the middle of the bike rather than over the back wheel makes the suspension work better.
"He has developed quite a following and he was way ahead of the curve."
