CSB - Ed Leigh - Natural Selection Bike

The world’s most exciting freeride mountain bike athletes are set to show off their skills in New Zealand, with the inaugural Natural Selection Bike to be held in Central Otago.

 

The contest will feature around 30 of the world’s top mountain bike athletes, including a host of homegrown heroes, and will be contested on the iconic Mt Dewar in Queenstown on February 15th, 2025.

 

The competition will feature a men’s and women’s division and will combine the three most dynamic disciplines in mountain biking: Downhill, Slopestyle, and Freeride.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Either it's gum boots or rugby boots. The Country Sport
Breakfast has you covered on gold Sport, your home of
live commentary.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, come on and take a free ride the edg
your winter group on the show. Now we're talking the
world's most exciting free ride mountain bike athletes set to
show off their skills down under in New Zealand in
Central Otago in February of next year. It's the Natural
Selection Bike Event coming to New Zealand. Joining us to

(00:47):
explain all Commercial director Lee Morning.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Ed Morning, how are you doing? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Great mate, great song to sort of talk about free riding.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Isn't it really perfect?

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Intros?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Absolutely so, tell us a little bit more about and
to explain to those that don't know about this event,
the Natural Selection fre Ride mountain Bike Event.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
What is it? Well, the best way to describe it
is if you took if you looked at motorsport and
you've got something like Bathhurst, You've got Formula one, and
then you've got WRC rally. If you combined all three
of those disciplines and invited the best drivers from each
of those disciplines to compete on one track, that is

(01:28):
what natural Selection is it's made it. The Natural Selection
Tour has made a name for itself in snowboarding under
the legendary snowboarder Travis Rice. He built the idea and
the concept in action sports is the best athletes in
the best locations with the best conditions, And when it
comes to mountain biking, that's the Southern Lakes. So we've

(01:51):
spent the last year and a half searching for and
then consenting a I truly believe one of the most
breathtaking venues you'll find anywhere in sport. It's Mount Dua
overlooking Queenstown and over the next two months we're going
to build one of the most incredible courses the mountain

(02:14):
bike world has ever seen.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
So you'll have the three disciplines here, the downhill, the slope,
style and the free.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Ride exactly we're taking. We're cherry picking the best riders
male and female from those disciplines to come and take
on this course. And no one seen anything like this
anywhere in the world.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
See that's remarkable. So we haven't had an event like
this in New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Before, No nowhere in the world has had an event
like this. You have rampage, which is free ride. You
have crank Works, which is freestyle slope style riding. You
have events like Rebel Hardline which take the pinnacle of downhill.
But combining all three of those elements, it hasn't been
done before.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
And as you said, the venue, you could not get
a bit of v anywhere in the world almost could you.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Oh, it's outrageous. It's a full back country venue. So
if you want to come and watch, if you want
to be a spectator, you need to be prepared for that.
We're building an event village, but it's only ten minutes
outside Queenstown above Arthur's Point, but it's a bit of
a walk in and then you can you can roam
across the mountain to find the best vantage points of

(03:23):
the course. So it'll be a full experience and the
best of the best riders are going to be there.
We've got Casey Brown Robin Gooms, both with New Zealand heritage.
We've got Emilio Hanson, the crank Works champion. We've got Camsink,
the Rampage champion. There's Carson Storch, one of the podium

(03:44):
finishers at Rampage this ye. There's so many different riders
all want to come down and take on this course,
so we're so excited about it and the course itself.
This is an old, essentially industrial wasteland. It's old forestry
land that we're going to build the course and then
regenerate that land and the aim ultimately is to have

(04:06):
an ultra low emission event in the back country.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
So it's just for one day next year.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yeah, we've got well, there's there's the weekend before it.
So February the fifteenth is the competition day and it
will be a one day, one and done. But the
week before queenstowns home to dream Track. These are the
world's biggest public jumps and we're going to use those
the weekend before to hold the dream Ticket event, the

(04:36):
proving Grounds event where New Zealand riders potentially Australian riders
can come down and try and qualify for the main event.
There'll be invites go out to the top tier riders,
but for some of the up and coming riders who
want to make a name for themselves, we've got a
qualifying event the week before and then we'll be running

(04:57):
lots of events through the week ahead of the main
An event on Saturday the fifteenth of February fantastic.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Put it in the diary, it'll be absolutely brilliant, well
done and all the very very best mate. Thank you
so much, Edley, commercial director for this natural selection back event.
Taking a free ride