Summer Hill Trails
Through BMX you get to realise how small the world really is. A year or two ago I got an email from a youngster by the name of Blair Mason. We had mutual friends and he was on his way to Vancouver on a working holiday. He asked if I was keen to catch up and go for a ride and possibly show him around, of course I jumped at the chance because if there’s any opportunity to ride and meet new people its always a good time. Months and many rides later (and a couple hundred empty beer cans later) I find the favour returned as he showed me around his home turf in Tauranga and Mount Maunganui in New Zealand. Particularly his local trails called Summer Hill.
Blair has no problem shredding his own trails and consider for a second that this was only his second day back at the trails after spending over a year away on the other side of the world. Nothing better to reacquaint yourself with your trails than throwing down a gnarly Seatgrab Nacnac .
Blair’s cousin, Henry Harrison, also rides and digs there, from what I can tell he digs more than he rides and is none too bothered by it either. Nothing seems to bug him much, a real chill cat. He was kind enough to coach me through the lines and was patient as I hacked my way through their lovely dirt mounds. Here’s Henry patiently over cranking the bars on a nice chill X-up.
Blair’s nickname is Goldie. I asked Henry why they called him Goldie thinking that it would be to do with his wild golden locks that hang from his head. All Henry said was “Cos he’s such a golden c@#t!”. I’m not sure what that means but we had a good laugh anyway. Here Blair gets ‘golden’ rotating three hundred and sixty degrees through the last section of jumps on his favourite line.
Thanks to Henry and Blair over at Summer Hill. If you find yourself in Tauranga look up these shredders on facebook and see if you can organise a ride at Summer Hill, you won’t regret it. Also check out their trail blog (run by Carl Cavanagh) to see more of the jumps: www.justnotinside.blogspot.com