Mountain biking fans were spoilt with two events staged in Dunedin over the weekend.
The Taieri Coastal Classic is in its fifth year and attracted a record number of competitors, with 326 people competing on Sunday.
Veteran Peter Green (Dunedin) was the fastest over the 40km course and came within 9sec of breaking the course record of 1hr 40min 30sec set by Dougal Allan in 2005.
Green headed off Bruce Jenkins (Mosgiel) and Bruce Hunt to take the veteran's title.
Chris Sinclair (Dunedin) won the men's open 40km from Mark Deacon (Balclutha) in second place and Daniel Hellyer in third spot.
Maggie Pasek (Dunedin) won the women's 40km in 2hr 6min 33sec from Karina Dollman (2nd) and Josie Cederman (3rd).
The other mountain biking event on over the weekend was the Signal Hill Downhill on Saturday.
It is a new event and attracted 60 competitors from around Otago and Southland as well as entrants from Nelson, Greymouth and Tauranga, and even visiting riders from Ireland and England.
Many of the riders used the event to get some practice before the South Island Cup race in Dunedin on January 31.
Only two riders managed to dip under the 3min mark.
Hayden McGregor (Tauranga) won the open men's class with a time of 2min 53.41sec.
Dunedin rider, Eddie Masters finished second with 2min 59.25sec.
Visiting Nelson rider Reuben Miller placed 3rd in 3min 04.35sec.
Dunedin's Sheryl MacLeod won the open women's in 3min 25.29sec from Invercargill's Shannan Miller (5min 06.94sec) and Alexandra's Shell Cobby (5min 48.70sec).
Leighton Kirk (Dunedin) won the junior men's race with Irish rider Peter O'Loughlin winning the master's race.
The ten fastest riders of the day were invited to race in a top 10 shootout for a cash prize of $100.
Masters, who had rushed off after his earlier race run to sit an exam, claimed the prize.
McGregor was the favourite to win after blitzing the field earlier in the day, but had a spectacular crash 100m from the finish.
He was quick to pick up his bike and sprint to the finish.
But the crash cost valuable seconds leaving him in 3rd place.
Local rider Tim Mackersy was second.
