Wellington Mountain Bike Club is looking forward to improving its timing systems thanks to a grant of $13,000 from NZCT.
Committee member David Bevan-Smith, who facilitates the annual Enduro multi-stage race series, is very excited. “The timing system will allow us to run larger events and downhill MTB races. It is important to us to continue to grow the MTB community in Wellington by simplifying the way our events are run, making it easier for people of all ages to participate and incorporate all the different types of MTB races.
“The club started with a downhill-specific focus and over the past ten years we have widened that to all forms of gravity mountain biking, especially Enduro. The new timing system will encourage wider participation in our events, simplify the operations of our events, and allow us to run other types of events, such as downhill, which in the past have required us to engage third parties at significant cost. The club donates the proceeds from our events back to trail areas, so the new system will also enable us to increase the funding we provide to trail areas for all to access throughout the Wellington region.
“We fund these activities by running mountain bike events for riders of all ages and abilities. Our philosophy is one of Trails, Trees and Traps. We've built tens of kilometres of multi-use trail across the city, planted thousands of trees, and funded traps to support ecological restoration in the areas that we build and ride.”
The Wellington Mountain Bike Club is a charitable organisation that supports the development of mountain biking as a sport across the city by building, maintaining, and advocating for access to the local trail network for all members of the community.