Back in dirt bike heaven

While based in Queenstown recently, World's Greatest Motorcycle Rides presenter Henry Cole got to...
While based in Queenstown recently, World's Greatest Motorcycle Rides presenter Henry Cole got to grips with riding a trail bike for the first time while filming a new series Dirt Bike New Zealand. Photo supplied.
English television presenter Henry Cole simply couldn't get enough of the South Island when he was in New Zealand last year filming the series the World's Greatest Motorcycle Rides for Sky's Travel Channel.

So, after fronting 37 shows on a road bike, he pitched an idea to his producers that saw him return for two weeks recently, base himself in Queenstown and branch out into dirt biking for the first time.

The series, Dirt Bike New Zealand, will be based solely in the South Island and Cole's description of the region would have been music to Mainland motorbike riders' ears, as he frequently expounded on "probably the best dirt bike place in the world".

"The South Island is the true New Zealand. You don't get better scenery or better riding than the South Island."

Cole made trail riding forays out from Queenstown to Twizel, Danseys Pass, Alexandra, Cromwell, Dunedin, Invercargill and Mt Cook.

Winding along the Dansey Pass tracks constituted his "best ride" as it offered the right balance between tricky and fun at just the right time in Cole's dirt bike riding progression.

"The terrain was quite challenging for a rookie but you've also got some opportunities for some seriously high speed stuff.

"It also coincided with getting more confident on the bike."

He described his KTM as a "brilliant little bike" but was sheepish about the condition in which it ended its journey with him.

"We've slightly wrecked it."

The motorbike fell off the back of its transport truck, delaying filming while it was repaired.

Local enthusiasts were quick to help him out when he switched from the easy-riding Harley Davidson 48 on which he had travelled New Zealand's highways last year, to the KTM-provided 250cc four-stroke EXCF, he picked up from McIver and Veitch in Dunedin.

Denis Columb, of Queenstown's Off Road Adventures, and his son, supercross and motocross ace Scott, took Cole out for a tuition session.

"If it wasn't for them, I'd be off in a tree somewhere."

Bannockburn-based business Central Otago Motorcycle Hire owner Dave Moreton provided some insight into his surrounding area and ended up performing bike-to-bike cameraman duties.

Cole and producer Hamish Rieck had researched a schedule before they embarked on the trip but left themselves open to suggestions from keen bikers in the communities they travelled through.

At the culmination of filming, Oxfordshire-based Cole (48), who has been riding since he was 15, criss-crossing the globe on motorcycle for his television shows, rated our region as one of the best.

"Apart from the deserts of America, I think the South Island has some of the finest riding in the world."

Dirt Bike New Zealand is due to air in two one-hour episodes on Sky's Travel Channel in June. It will also feature some of Cole's tourism activities, which included gliding in Omarama, heli-biking in Queenstown and herding sheep at Walter Peak Station on the Lake Wakatipu shoreline.

 

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