Rod Drury, a tech entrepreneur who’s also massively supported the development of local mountain bike trails, says "what I thought was, now we’ve got this amazing infrastructure, to really prove to the town the economic impact of bike, we wanted to build a significant event over the top".
"So we looked at, could we get a Crankworx here, could we get a World Cup downhill race?
"And it turned out I got approached by famous snowboarder, Travis Rice, who was running the Natural Selection Tour [for snowboarders], and we started chatting and we said, ‘well, why don’t we bring the Natural Selection Tour [for mountain bike riders] down to New Zealand?’
"First time they’ve ever done it out of the States.
"And they said, ‘that sounds like a good thing, if you guys build the course and put local people in here to help manage the event, then we’ll do a Natural Selection Tour’."
Drury says the whole event — involving 26 of the world’s best riders competing on Arthurs Point’s all-new Mt Dewar course — is a $2.5million investment between himself and other sponsors.
The government’s Major Events Fund’s also chipped in with $500,000.
"[Last week] I stood at the top of the course with a couple of top professional riders, and they were saying this is one of the best freeride jump courses, most scenic courses they’ve ever seen.
"The amount of FOMO that’s happening from riders who aren’t here ... anyone that’s not here is vowing to be here next year."
Drury says the event — being broadcast ‘as live’ on Red Bull TV and TVNZ on March 6 — also takes advantage of the fact almost all the world’s top riders now come to Queenstown during their off-season.
Decider for last four spots
Twenty-five freerider mountain bikers will be putting down their best tricks tomorrow at Queenstown’s Dream Track, in Wynyard Jump Park, to decide the final four slots — two female, two male — for Natural Selection Bike on February 15.
Natural Selection Dream Ticket — from 12 till 2pm — includes Queenstown-based athletes Emma Olofsson, David Nani Perez and Matt Begg.
The event’s open to the public and free to attend.
