We bounced out of Naseby just before sunset and made a beeline for curling hotspot Naseby. Actually it’s also a mountain biking hotspot; a popular weekend getaway for Dunedin based riders as well as people trying to retrace Darren Berrecloth and Nathan Greenwood’s Drop In footsteps. The latter was us, but no one told local legend Kila Hepi that as he crushed us with a quick loop of the flowy local XC trails. Ex XC racer Conor Macfarlane was in his element, Brett on his Kill Switch with tiny post not so much, but when it pointed down or rolled into any of the perfect berms that the whole place rocks, well then Brett was crushing it!
Mike Hopkins likes a loamy corner here and there…
Naseby (for those that don’t know) is one picturesque mountain biking destination…
Why so serious? Keep calm and carry on (trying to keep up with Kila!). The guy second from the right (Wide Open Rep Kris) was a Tour de France team mechanic. It’s worth mentioning he’s just sent—make that guinea pigged—a super gnarly freeride line, setting the bar high for Kelly, Conor and Hopkins!
If you’re not in Naseby for the trails you’re there for the dirt, and how fricken easy it is to sculpt. After knocking out two photos in quick succession we were rolling back to the OG freeride zone when Conor just decided to stomp this steezy X-up off a man-sized stepdown.
All of this was done to the sound of thunder. Epic central Otago thunder, and rain, lots of rain. Thing is Kelly and Hopkins weren’t at all deterred by the rain and both pushed through the biblical weather to log some sweet footage.
This photo doesn’t do this chute justice. You need to know that I’m pointing my camera straight up; this thing is vertical and the step down at the bottom, that’s just normal steep. After taking this shot I went up top, and was fricken scared just standing on the edge of this thing…
With both Kelly and Conor heading to some freeride comp in the Aussie outback first thing the following morning, the team jettisoned Naseby before anything resembling nice light arrived. Although on the drive home we spotted this little gem as round two of the thunderstorm was lining itself up. Mike and Kelly manned up and after two days of hard riding both stomped serious lines down this steep face.
Caleb, it’s NASEBY! You spell it wrong again and Imma gonna wail on you so hard…