Sport: Adventure Playground Capital

Longboarding

When Paddy Howard came off his long­board at 60km/h he didn’t think for a moment that he should find a more peace­ful recre­ation­al pur­suit. Even boun­cing off the slightly uneven path near Ngaur­anga Gorge and badly scrap­ing his knee didn’t hinder his desire to come back and con­tin­ue ‘bomb­ing’ hills (to bomb = to race to the end).

It doesn’t have to be so bumpy. Wel­ling­ton has an abund­ance of areas where the pave­ment is smooth and provides a con­crete play­ground. There are hot­spots in Aro Val­ley and — if you are look­ing for more of a chal­lenge — Brook­lyn, near the upper end of Ashton Fitch­ett Drive, close to the wind tur­bine. The safest areas to ride are non-inter­sect­ing roads, and most riders choose to go out at night when there is less traffic.

Chris Sander­son, a mem­ber of the Wel­ling­ton Long­board Asso­ci­ation (WLA), says that “90 per­cent of people don’t know that I’m there on the road, and the oth­er ten per­cent are out to get me”. He is adam­ant that he has rights, and that boarders will be hurt if people aren’t care­ful. “We just hope people will do the right thing.”

In 2014, 15 and 16 March marked the annu­al Wind Tur­bine Race. Start­ing just metres from the Brook­lyn wind tur­bine, the event saw riders nav­ig­at­ing a 1km time-tri­al run. Con­di­tions on the day made for some impress­ive slides, mean­ing that riders had to be care­ful nav­ig­at­ing corners. Hel­mets, gloves and kneep­ads are obvi­ous safety neces­sit­ies, as riders reach speeds of over 50 km/h — the weekend’s quick­est time was recor­ded at 1 minute 13 seconds. Assist­ance from ambu­lance crews is also on hand, which is cru­cial as one par­ti­cipant dis­lo­cated his shoulder dur­ing a run.

Typ­ic­ally, riders arrange to meet up on Sundays via the WLA Face­book page, often at the ‘spir­al’ link­ing Thorndon Quay and the Fran Wilde Walk approach to West­pac Sta­di­um near the Wel­ling­ton Rail­way Sta­tion. New­bies can bor­row a board and start with the basics.

WLA’s spon­sor­ship expert, Rachel Lon­don, encour­ages every­one to give long­board­ing a go. With one of the group’s old­est mem­bers being 57 years of age, what excuse have you got?

 

 

Slacklining

A web of lines forms across Aro Park; an unusu­al sight to see on a Sunday after­noon. Is it tightrope walk­ing? Not quite. It’s some­thing a little more dynam­ic: slacklining.

The sport can be described as an exer­cise in bal­ance using nylon or poly­es­ter webbing, held between two anchor points, and devotees con­sider it to be more dynam­ic than tightrope walk­ing. The ten­sion and thick­ness of the webbing can be adjus­ted to suit the user and what they are try­ing to achieve. There are a num­ber of options: high­lin­ing, trick­lin­ing, longlin­ing and even water­lin­ing. Enthu­si­ast Mor­gan Plain says that trick­lin­ing involves chest bounces and butt bounces. Longlin­ing is per­formed on a 2.5cm-thick line, and the longer the line is, the harder it becomes to keep your bal­ance all the way across.

Fish­Head pho­to­graph­er Mark Tan­trum tried it out, and found ini­tially that main­tain­ing his bal­ance was a real chal­lenge. “If you are los­ing your bal­ance, you move your hands as opposed to your feet, in order to regain bal­ance. The trick is also to zone out and focus on a ref­er­ence point,” says Plain. A ref­er­ence point becomes harder to focus on when you are high­lin­ing, for example, as you are often posi­tioned above water mov­ing below you, and your bal­ance can be thrown off.

Mor­gan says that his line is no more than “a fancy truck tie-down” that set him back a mod­est $80 on Trade Me, although Gib­bon Slack­lines is con­sidered the go-to com­pany for any­thing slack­line related. The com­pany also provide tree pro­tect­ors, which are cru­cial when the lines are set up around trees, as in Aro Park. The pro­tect­ors pre­vent rings form­ing around the trees due to wear and tear.

Gib­bon Slack­lines have a risk assess­ment form out­lining what slack­liners should con­sider before each walk. A line for learners, they sug­gest, should be no more than 50cm off the ground. Safety pads are also recom­men­ded, to min­im­ise risk of injury.

The Wel­ling­ton Slack­line Col­lect­ive is in the pro­cess of becom­ing an incor­por­ated soci­ety, which will allow them to fun­draise for equip­ment and events, and they suc­cess­fully ran their own slack­line fest­iv­al at Frank Kitts Park last year.

Les Mills per­son­al train­er Luis Carvalho has been look­ing into the health bene­fits of slack­lin­ing. He told Fish­Head that research car­ried out by Aus­trali­an Physio­ther­apy Asso­ci­ation sports ther­ap­ist Philip Gabel describes slack­lin­ing as “a nov­el meth­od to enhance quadri­ceps recruit­ment, core strength and bal­ance con­trol”. Slack­liners con­sider the sport to be a less strenu­ous exer­cise option for people suf­fer­ing from knee injur­ies — all the more reas­on to ‘slack off’, as they say!

Kitesurfing/kiteboarding

When the winds at Lyall Bay reach gale force, that’s when the ‘Best Kite­board­ing’ flag is raised. The flag sig­nals where to meet, and on that stormy day I lost most of the cir­cu­la­tion in my fingertips!

          Bri­an Wal­ters met up with us to give us an insight into the sport of kite­sur­f­ing and board­ing. Bri­an — who is sponsored by Best Kite­board­ing, a brand star­ted by pion­eer Shan­non Best — told me “there are three prom­in­ent cat­egor­ies in the sport: wave rid­ing, free­style and big air”. Kite­sur­f­ing fuses ele­ments of surf­ing and is used when rid­ing boards strap­less (in oth­er words, you not attached to the board) in the surf. Kite­board­ing, how­ever, is more like wake­board­ing (itself a fusion of water ski­ing and snow­board­ing), rid­ing the twin-tip boards asso­ci­ated with freestyle.

Gabe Laing-Aiken has been kite­board­ing for three years. He star­ted out at Raglan Beach when he was 12 years old, and soon came up to speed. Today, he sports a ‘twin tip’ — a board that allows him to ride back­wards and for­wards on the waves.

The idea is that the win­di­er the con­di­tions, the smal­ler the kite you use, mak­ing Aiken’s 6m kite ideal for the 35-knot winds that rattle through Lyall Bay. Stormy weath­er doesn’t often deter kite­sur­fer Jam­ie Mac­Don­ald, although if it is over 50 knots, he says he won’t go out. “The trick to hand­ling the wind is to keep the kite low when you are head­ing out. If you come into danger, you can pull the safety release that is clipped onto your waist, link­ing up to the kite, which will turn into a flag when the release is pulled.”

Learners should not, how­ever, throw cau­tion to the wind. A sign on the beach­front states: “Lyall Bay is not for begin­ners, and is not appro­pri­ate for teach­ing.” For new­bies, the best places to go include Fox­ton Beach and the Kapiti Coast, as city beaches are gen­er­ally gustier.

In terms of future devel­op­ment, riders are hop­ing that the wake park pro­posed for Aotea Lagoon in Pori­rua will go ahead, allow­ing them to fre­quent the area in the sum­mer­time. But first, it has to get through a con­sent pro­cess with Pori­rua City Coun­cil and the region­al coun­cil. Here’s hoping!

 

Downhill mountain biking

 On a swel­ter­ing day on Mt Vic­tor­ia, Fish­Head was guided around jumps dot­ted along the hill­side, and shown how not to break a leg as you hurtle down a mountain.
Moun­tain bik­ing is a pop­u­lar pas­time for many Wel­ling­to­ni­ans, but you may not be aware of some options, includ­ing Bike Wellington’s skills courses and tours around the hills of the city, with qual­i­fied guides.

Bike Wellington’s latest offer­ing take things a step fur­ther: Wel­ling­ton Off-Road Rid­ing Depart­ment (WORD). Foun­ded in 2013, it encour­ages sev­en- to 17-year-olds to get among the dirt. Ash­ley Bur­gess of Bike Wel­ling­ton is one of the people mak­ing it all hap­pen, and says one of the suc­cesses of the club is see­ing “kids who were strug­gling in school regain­ing their con­fid­ence through biking”.

Ash­ley is also the co-founder of Revolve Cyc­ling Club — a woman-only club that was estab­lished five years ago. The ladies have their own Super V race day at Pol­hill Reserve in Aro Val­ley. This is the women’s ver­sion of the Super D format, a down­hill cross-coun­try race.

The Wel­ling­ton Moun­tain Bike Club, a non-profit organ­isa­tion run by volun­teers, holds events year-round round, includ­ing the cSixx Mt Vic Super D earli­er this year.

Anoth­er pop­u­lar area for bik­ing is Rata Ridge in Wainu­io­mata. Rider Jack What­tam says “the track is far less groomed than most, which makes for fun rid­ing. The area would be a Grade 4, which involves quite a tech­nic­al ride.” If you are look­ing for a less tech­nic­al — and more child-friendly — track, try the South Coast Kids Track in Island Bay. This track is not steep and is wider than most, mak­ing it ideal for learners. What­tam is involved in trail-build­ing at Makara Peak and in the past has been involved with trail-build­ing in Chile through New Zea­l­and Trail Solutions.

Volun­teer-led trail pro­jects can apply to Trail Fund NZ for grants to help build new trails or work on exist­ing trails. A tonne of oppor­tun­it­ies are on offer, and if you can nav­ig­ate a bike with dual sus­pen­sion down a hill, then you are halfway there!