Annual Road Event Welcomes E Bikes

The Raetihi Gutbuster, created to celebrate the sealing of the road between Raetihi and Pipiriki, is a fun event for cyclists and runners or walkers.

“E bikes are becoming very popular” says Lucy Conway, co-creator of the event, “With all the paper roads that already link some of our towns and formed roads, we think that Raetihi could become the E bike capital of the North Island, so we decided to create a category for e bikes in our event, people getting back into biking, or just starting out, probably don’t get many opportunities to enter events like ours, and we think they’d like it.”

The road between Raetihi and Pipiriki was an important transport link before the Main Trunk Line was completed last century, and in 2010 it was finally sealed.

The event is now in it’s 7th year, Lucy says “when we moved here in 2007, I knew it was the ideal location for a cycling or running event – the length, the views, the terrain, everything about it was perfect. The Historical aspect of it was the icing on the cake”.

Being a small town with a big heart, the event is run by volunteers. Some people race it incredibly quickly, and some people take a picnic and stop for a while at the Waipuna road drink station to enjoy the Mountain views. Nobody gets ‘disqualified’, even if there are rumours of help from the Tail End Charlie.

“It’s about getting out there and enjoying the ride, or run, so we’ve always given out our many prizes, major and minor by randomly drawing race numbers out of a box. E bikers will get a surprise if they do zero training though. A big hill is still a big hill. Assisted or not, the course is challenging.

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