How can you make something awesome even more awesome? Add the prefix “heli” to it.
On Saturday my riding buddy Robin and I made the pilgrimage to Taupo (or thereabouts) to check out Kaimanawa Heli-Biking. Robin had been given a voucher to do it for his birthday, and I didn’t take much convincing to go along for the adventure.
All I knew driving down was that we were going to be dropped at the top of a pretty big hill with our bikes, ride down the hill, and then get picked up again at the bottom, and that this was all going to happen somewhere in the remote Kaimanawa Ranges.
After paying (a reasonable $395), and loading and fueling the helicopter we set off on a slightly nerve-wracking 15 minute flight over native bush to the summit, which apparently would be a 3 day walk from the end of the road. After doing my best MASH impression to clear the chopper and unloading the bikes our pilot headed off into the distance leaving us in the eerie silence at 5200 feet on a near perfect day. It was a pretty amazing place to be, up on a barren rocky summit, knowing you were miles from the nearest people.
The ride down is divided into two halves. The first half of the ride starts off with a sweet shale descent down a ridge line, with a pretty sheer drop on your left. It is hard to pay attention to the trial riding in such an incredible environment. Luckily the riding isn’t particularly challenging. As you hit the scrub the ride flattens out a bit, and there are a couple of relatively short uphills (which are pretty challenging at that altitude).
The second half of the ride is the best riding, with some wide open fast sections, and a couple of long, super-fast steep sections. My arms were pumping hard, and I was getting super tired braking fingers with 10 minute+ sections of descent. When we got to the bottom the chopper whipped us halfway back up and we got to ride this second half again.
I am not sure that my photos and videos really do it justice, but here are a few from the trip:
See more pics and vids over at Flickr.
If you ever get a chance to do it, do. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
