Unlike most sports groups, the Queenstown Mountain Bike Club is hoping for bad weather over the next two months to lubricate its new cyclocross track at Jardine Park.
Cyclocross is a high-speed winter sport popular in the northern hemisphere in which competitors ride adapted road bikes with knobby tyres to slip and slide through snow and mud around mixed-terrain courses - all while wearing Lycra.
Queenstown will host the national championships in July and the club held a working bee last Saturday.
After a day of work with a tractor, mower and a couple of weed-eaters, club events co-ordinator Carey Vivian said all the track needed now was some bad weather to make it slippery for the racers.
"A good metre of snow or so would be good to get it nice and muddy and all ready for racing, and we are pretty sure it's going to come."
The race will be held on July 2, with practice days beforehand on the 4km of tracks, from which the final course will be decided on the day. An international cyclocross event is to be held in Queenstown as part of the 2011 New Zealand Winter Games.
