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Taniwha Downhill is more than just a track down a hill with shuttle access, it’s a real race track that will take the best riders to their limits. With world class events like the Oceania Champs and NZ national rounds transforming the steep gradient into a myriad of lightening fast and wide lines, deep turns, […]
The recently built Challenge block has brought a whole new element to the forest in Rotorua, giving riders a bunch of trails that are both easily accessible and just plain fun to ride. Every weekend this section of the Redwoods is jammed with kids and families, punching out run after run – when it’s a […]
By the time we reached trail #7 of our ten-trail odyssey in the Redwoods, the Flow crew was starting to feel a little peckish. But Mike Metz of Bike Culture knew just the thing to revive us; a heaped serving of Hot X Buns. And, man, was it tasty. Hot X Buns is a trail […]
Even if Lisa’s infectious grin hadn’t done the trick, Challenge is the kind of trail that forces you to smile and holler. It’s 100% off the brakes; roller, berm, double, double, berm, berm, roller, step-up…. you get in the flow just thinking about it! It’s a trail you can ride on any bike and with […]
With the red dust still settling in Cairns after the inaugural Australian World Tour stop, the festival set sights on Rotorua for its eighth running. The just managing to squeak through in March 2020 before the world blew up, Crankworx Rotorua was held last year, but as a very intimate, athletes and media-only event. For […]
Rotorua has always been a paradise for mountain bikers, and the Whakarewarewa Forest is a bit like the promised land. Riders from around the world have made the pilgrimage to the North Island of New Zealand to ride the forest, which now has north of 200km of singletrack. But in among all of that riding, […]
After two years of bike bags everywhere toiling in sheds, garages and back closets, it’s well and truly time to dust them off and set sail for trails over yonder. We’ve been itching for an excuse to head back to Rotorua and get lost in the Whaka forest, and we think we’ve found it. There […]
Ah, Rotorua, the home to some of the best dirt on earth, a welcoming riding community, and more natural hot springs than you can shake a stick at. The Whakarewarewa Forest has over 200km of singletrack, but it wasn’t always that way. “It’s been a slow burner; this is literally something that started in the […]
Waking up in a hospital outside of Prague, Harriet Burbidge-Smith had crashed at a Red Bull Revelations four-cross event. Layed up and severely injured, she was hungry. “I still have no memory of the crash or about 24-hours before or after, but I lacerated my liver and had a pretty severe concussion. I spent about […]
Up until recently, there haven’t been many suitable ways to bring your child along with you while mountain biking. Rear-mounted child seats have of course been around forever, but they’re typically designed for commuting, touring or bike-path riding. Most of them attach via a pannier rack system too, which means they’re only compatible with rigid […]
Campsite one – Cowichan was my first glimpse of the tent city that is the BCBR home for the next seven days. I’ll be honest, I don’t like camping (it is too in tents…), and the tent city was a little daunting to see at first. Tent mates were selected, and we all settled in […]
We spent Five Rad Days in Rotorua catching all the action of Crankworx, shredding mind-blowing trails and going Full-Kiwi-Adventure-Mode! Day 1 Day 1 in paradise was spent shuttling the trails of the Whakarewarewa forest, zip-lining through the canopy and we wrapped it all up with a mountain bike trivia night. Day 2 After kicking off […]
There’s always a silver lining. Even in the biggest, nastiest rain cloud, like the ones that dumped down on Rotorua yesterday. The upshot of the Slopestyle being postponed yesterday, was that it mean we had a MASSIVE final day here at Crankworx, with both the downhill and Slopestyle taking place. It couldn’t have been more […]
The fourth of our Five Rad Days in Rotorua got started with some serious off-bike adrenaline, as we jet-boated, bungee-swinged, sky dived (kinda) and got sent flying down a hill inside a massive, inflatable golf ball thingo! It was quite the way to start the day! We’d hoped the morning’s madness would just be warm […]
Our third day in mountain bike paradise began with another trip to the Redwoods, this time with a guided ride from the team at Mountain Bike Rotorua, to make sure we didn’t miss any tasty bits. With a belly full of Roto loam, it was back out to Skyline, to join the frothing masses for […]
The trails are world class and the local riders, and community in general, always offer us such a warm Kiwi welcome. The EWS will release 2019’s locations daily, starting today – including four completely new venues. And first up will be a trip down under to the incredible trails of Rotorua, New Zealand. This North Island venue has […]
In 2017, Moir took the 2nd podium spot at the World Cup in Fort William, and kept it close to, or inside, the top 10 in the UCI Downhill Mountain Bike World Cup — except for in Andorra. When he’s close enough to a round of the Enduro World Series, and his schedule allows, he’ll […]
499 entries (preferable to 500 in the world of singlespeeding) entertaining over 2000 spectators spread around a twin loop course featuring mainly well-established, old-school trails in the Whakarewarewa Forest network. There were over 100,000 video views and tens of thousands of photo views on the event Facebook and Instagram (@sswc2017) pages within 48 hours of […]
This year, Crankworx Rotorua played host to no less than seven different events, as well as numerous riding clinics and the huge expo area that’s open to the public everyday, showcasing the latest and greatest from brands across the world. Let’s take a look back at all the action over the past week- is it […]
Heavy rain early in the day rendered Crankworx Rotorua’s opening event into one of the most savage EWS races to date, with all seven stages transforming from hero dirt during practice into something altogether more brutal come race day. The pro men’s field left the stage last and bore the brunt of the changing conditions. […]
The Crankworx World Tour, born out of Whistler’s 10-day celebration of gravity-mountain biking, will grow to add another international location for summer 2017: Innsbruck, Austria. Innsbruck is the only city in the world to have hosted three Olympic Games and have a history with the kind of competition Crankworx does best: defying gravity. Having staged […]
In its second year, Crankworx Rotorua put on a mighty show of awesome gravity racing with so many huge events on the doorstep of some of the world’s finest riding. Here’s how it went down. A KIWI AND A QUEEN WIN BIG AT CRANKWORX ROTORUA ON DAY ONE. Young gun Matt Walker and 2015 Queen […]
A strong contingent of elite athletes, a new downhill race, the Deep Summer photography showcase and more Kidsworx events will see Crankworx Rotorua expand for 2016 as New Zealand welcomes the international mountain biking community. Fans can join the King and Queen of the Crankworx World Tour, Bernard KERR (GBR) and Anneke BEERTEN (NED), Aussie […]
Les Gets, France brings Crankworx to a legendary Downhill hotspot Dates announced for Crankworx Rotorua, Crankworx Les Gets and Crankworx Whistler The podiums have been put away, but the Champagne keeps popping as the three-stop Crankworx World Tour announces it’s adding Les Gets, France to the family. Nestled in the 12-resort Portes du Soleil circuit, […]
The Giant 2W Gravity Enduro mountain bike race series is one of the biggest Enduro events in the Southern hemisphere, and caters for a wide range of riders on the world-renowned trails of Rotorua’s Whakarewarewa Forest. In its three year history the event has attracted some of the world’s top riders, and the announcement this […]
Behind every cloud is a silver lining, and despite a one day rain delay which forced the postponement of the most highly anticipated event of the week-long Crankworx Whistler festival, Red Bull Joyride hit the mountain on August 16th showcasing slopestyle mountain biking under near perfect weather conditions. Watch the complete event replay here: REPLAY […]
Freshly cut in the glorious dirt by savvy locals, sculpted by hand only with a strong nod to the enduro race crowd, Kung Fu Walrus is a 1.4km wild descent with already a big reputation for challenging all levels of riders! It’s a tricky grade 4 track that requires very little pedalling, but a whole lot […]
Freshly cut in the glorious dirt by savvy locals, sculpted by hand only with a strong nod to the enduro race crowd, Kung Fu Walrus is a 1.4km wild descent with already a big reputation for challenging all levels of riders! It’s a tricky grade 4 track that requires very little pedalling, but a whole lot […]
A 26km drive from Rotorua on the road south towards Taupo is a lone mountain that pops out of the lush green rolling hills, smack bang on top of some very active geothermal ground. Rainbow Mountain is a wonderful experience, the trail is challenging and fun to ride, the native bushland is amazing and peculiar and […]
Rainbow Mountain A 26km drive from Rotorua on the road south towards Taupo is a lone mountain that pops out of the lush green rolling hills, smack bang on top of some very active geothermal ground. Rainbow Mountain is a wonderful experience, the trail is challenging and fun to ride, the native bushland is amazing and […]
We’ll be bringing you an insider’s perspective. So insider, in fact, that you’ll even be able to see what Josh’s heart is doing. For this unique series, we’ve teamed up with Today’s Plan, an Australian training tools provider, who work with Josh to analyse his training and monitor his performance. (Check out our first impressions […]
With practice for the stages 1 and 7 of the Enduro World Series, downhill practice, and the Oceania Whip Off Championship, it was a real mixed bag of riding, with a common thread of ‘holy shit’ running through it. Let’s take a look at some of the day’s highlights. Enduro World Series Practice, stages 1 […]
WORLD’S TOP GRAVITY MOUNTAIN BIKERS DESCEND ON THE LAND DOWN UNDER Triple Crown of Slopestyle, Crankworx Series titles, King & Queen of Crankworx World Tour underway. One explosive week of mountain biking is about to unfold in Rotorua, New Zealand, where the first round of the Crankworx World Tour sets the stage for a […]
Masters ‘smashes it’ to take an upset win. A capacity field of 400 enjoyed dry and dusty conditions in Rotorua during today’s Giant 2W Gravity Enduro, beating the onset of the forecast rain which arrived at the end of prize giving. New Plymouth’s Wyn Masters put a solid stamp on his credentials as a complete all-round […]
Athlete registration for Crankworx Rotorua opens this Thursday at 9 a.m New Zealand time. This includes registration for the Giant Toa Enduro and the Crankworx Downhill. Organisers are expecting tickets to sell like hot cakes, which is not suprising considering the calibre of trails on offer. Last year we documented the top ten trails in […]
This happened to us. The recently opened Australian Alpine Epic Trail is teeming with huge vistas, magical flow, effortless speed, massive trail variety and it’s all in a wide-eyed frothing ride that gives that feeling that only the most epic of epic rides can deliver. It’s a big day out, with plenty of climbing and hard effort […]
While we mainlanders have been making cruel (and basically untrue, of course) jokes about Tasmanians for years, it’s now their turn to laugh at us. Because when it comes to mountain biking, Tasmania is storming ahead of the rest of Australia in the trails-to-population ratio. The first part of our whirlwind trip to Tassie was […]
Having hosted the occasional event in the distant past, the site was the venue for the successful 2006 World Championships. Skyline handled the hundreds of competitors and thousands of fans easily. After all the bunting came down and the people went home, there were musings about permanent trails. Some rippers have lapped it out over […]
The Fox Creek trail network is located 45 minutes out of Adelaide SA and it’s a place you want to visit. This fully signposted trail network has something for all mountain bikers. There is even a vineyard at the trailhead with a pizza oven. Great times. Flow caught up with IMBA Australia director and trail […]
This hillside, which felt the touch of the bulldozer’s blade not long ago, has become a real treat for Rotorua’s trail builders. Gunna Gotta, Corridor, K2 and plenty more have either been reborn or created anew on this slope, where the felling of the trees has left room for creative minds with shovels and dozers […]
Like its musical namesake, Split Enz is a Kiwi national treasure as far as we’re concerned. On the day we rode this sinuous piece of singletrack it was so damp we ended up feeling like we’d spent six months in a leaky boat, but no amount of mist and rain could make us see red. […]
This combination of trails must easily be one of the most popular link ups in the whole forest. Huckleberry Hound and Little Red Riding Huck dish up a dizzying flow of playful jumps and berms that just keep going until your face hurts from grinning. Hit these two trails in combination back to back and […]
Built in 2004, Gunna Gotta, like B Rude Not 2 from last week, is another iconic Redwoods trail that recently received a facelift courtesy of the bulldozer’s blade. In this instance, the logging not only gave builder Dave Hutchings and the Rotorua Mountain Bike Club a clean slate to reshape the trail, but it also […]
As Disney’s Lion King once observed, ‘it’s the circle of life’. When Be Rude Not To was bulldozed into oblivion back on 2011, it was a heartbreaking moment for thousands of mountain bikers who’d run their tyres over this incredible old trail. A tough pill to swallow perhaps but that’s the reality of building trails […]
Could you name your favourite trail in Rotorua’s Whakarewarewa Forest? With hundreds of kilometres of the world’s best singletrack to chose from, picking one trail as top dog is a big ask. Gaz Sullivan – the force behind Nzo clothing – has spent more time in the forest than most of the trees have. He […]
*This story has been updated on April 16 with new information about Slopestyle Grab some sunscreen and your best party shirt because Crankworx is returning to Cairns May 22-26, 2024. Yes, that means it’s only a few days after the UCI Masters World Championships, which also descends on Cairns from May 16-19. Oh, and did […]
Crankworx is back babeeee, and the world’s best freeride athletes have set a course for Cairns this May, with the festival running from May 17-21. “Now hang on just one minute,” we can hear you saying. “Wasn’t Crankworx just here?” It sure was, with the festival landing in Aus for the first time back in […]
Holy crap, it’s already mid-December, where has the last year gone? With the silly season looming, Team Flow is all hands on deck to put a bow on 2022. While Santa is packing his sleigh and the reindeer are doing their stretches, the bike industry has kicked into hyperdrive. In the last couple of weeks, […]
It’s been a while since we last embedded with the Polygon crew for shenanigans on two wheels, but this time we’ve traded the high alpine for the tropical rainforest. Crankworx Cairns brought some of the world’s best to Tropical North Queensland, including from team Polygon, who combine forces with the Aussie contingent to put on […]
Hello Flow Frothers, and welcome to a frosty edition of Flow’s Fresh Produce. As the cold well and truly sets in across the country, take a journey with us to the warmer climes of Tropical North Queensland for a look at the Triple R through the ages. The race turns 30 this year, making it […]
We’re back again with another wintery edition of Flow’s Fresh Produce. The snow has been piling up in the alpine areas, and the warm riding clothing has been in heavy rotation at Flow HQ. With the mercury continuing to drop, we’re currently dreaming of the Reef to Reef. Running from August 18-21, the race is […]
Among the crocodiles and the cassowaries, Cairns will play host to a Crankworx World Tour stop from October 5-9, 2022. The idea to bring Crankworx to Australia has been bubbling away in the background since just after the World Championships rolled through Cairns in 2017. Matt Hilton from GTR Events — which ran the Cairns […]
Standing 1,390m above sea level, Mount Canobolas is an extinct volcano near Orange, NSW, with a paved road to the summit and as much a 500m of usable vertical drop — sounds like a no brainer for a mountain bike trail network, right? The potential for something special is precisely why Rodney Farrell has been […]
Last year when we took a deep dive into what native logging means for Blue Derby, we learned that there was a plan in the works to encapsulate the footprint of Blue Derby into a reserve that would protect the trail network from logging. As recently as January 21, 2022, Sustainable Timber Tasmania has confirmed […]
Tasmania’s West Coast is rugged and remote. The landscapes are raw, untamed and look more like what you would expect to find in the Rocky Mountains in North America, or even across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand’s Southern Alps. Queenstown (not the one in New Zealand) is the biggest population centre in Western Tasmania […]
In 2019 most of Australia was on fire, and Fox Creek Bike Park in the Adelaide Hills was at the epicentre of the Cudlee Creek Fire, which would consume nearly 25,000-hectares. The bike park is on Forestry SA land in the midst of a pine plantation, and just as the landscape around it was reduced […]
Mountain bikers first took to Falls Creek in 2013, debuting with two XC trails and two descending trails. Three subsequent development stages have seen the network balloon to 40km, all set against an epic alpine background. The team at Falls have just announced a further 11km, set to open for the 2022/2023 riding season, but […]