You can have a perfectly good mountain bike ride on flat terrain.But to be honest, mountain biking needs mountains. Or at least decent hills. In Rotorua we don’t have mountains, but we do have hills. The hills that have the Whakarewarewa Forest growing on them in particular.
Most rides follow a theme, clamber up to the top of a hill, pick a trail to have fun on.
One of the hills has a forestry road up one side, a brutal but brief thing called Direct Road. On the other side of the hill is a gently climbing trail called Apumoana.
Both result in a desire among all comers to stop when they arrive at the intersection of the forestry road and at least half a dozen trails. It isn’t compulsory, but most people do it. Even people on e-bikes pause for a break.
The last two times I have arrived at the junction there has been a committee waiting to say hello.
People I haven’t seen for years, and some I see every other day.
I met Craig. We took the chance to ride a couple of trails together.
Craig was the first mountain biker we met when we moved to Rotorua. He was waiting for us in the driveway when we arrived from Auckland. He lived directly across the road from the house we had rented, and he had heard about us and what we had come to town to do. He was as completely obsessed with mountain biking as a twelve-year-old could be.
Which makes what we talked about between skids even more amazing: how much we both love riding our bikes. He has become a professional builder of trails and pump tracks, and before that was a privateer downhill pro, so he has been deeply engaged with mountain bike stuff for decades. And he is still fizzing about it.
After my next ascent of Apumoana I met up with Graeme. I ride with him more often, and this time was an indicator of how much he loves riding his bike: he had spent the previous week away on projects, and had to go again that very afternoon, but he had got up at 530am to drive home so he could get out for a skid.
On both occasions we tried to explain what it was about mountain biking that scratches that particular itch, and we didn’t come up with anything scientific.
It’s just awesome (as you already know).