WINNERS: Rotorua's Alex Saunders (left) and Cameron Robertson, who each won a share of $10,000 after filming themselves biking indoors. PHOTO/STEPHEN PARKER
The competition, called Another Hitachi Day, was promoted as being compensation for the country's wet summer.
"We thought it would be fun to create a competition where you take a typically outdoor activity or situation, and re-create it indoors. It could be anything, flying a kite, playing your favourite sport, surfing, skiing, Kiwi barbecue, summer beach party, mountain biking, rock climbing, playing on the jungle gym, the only limit is your imagination, states the competition website," said an organiser.
Connor said the trio heard about the contest from their media teacher at Western Heights High School.
"We are all pretty mad about mountainbiking so that's what we decided to do."
He said the trio spent three to four days filming for the three-minute clip and about 12 hours editing.
Cameron and Alex already had a YouTube channel on which they regularly posted videos of themselves mountainbiking so the process wasn't unfamiliar territory for them.
Connor said it was pretty challenging making the competition entry. "There isn't a whole lot you can do on a bike indoors."
The majority of the video was shot at Cameron's house but the teenagers also got permission from their principal to use parts of the school. Once the entry was finished and online, the trio advertised on social networking website Facebook for people to vote for their entry.
Alex said he was confident the group had a good chance of winning when they entered the competition.
"We thought it would be based on the video content and how it was edited, but we got nervous when we found out it was just a popularity contest," he said.
"We kept an eye on how many votes we got and towards the end of the competition we knew we had a good chance of winning."
Alex said he felt more relieved than surprised when the group found out they won.
"Our hard work paid off."
Alex said he and Cameron were planning to use their share of the $10,000 to go towards some of their course-related costs when they head off to university next year, while Connor plans to use his share to go on holiday in Hawaii.
Top school in the competition was Te Poi School which won a Hitachi heat pump.