Events & Races
A number of cycling events are held around the country as fun rides, fundraisers or competitive cycling events:
- The 160 km Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge has been held since 1977 and is predominately a non-competitive event. The event raises money for the Lake Taupo community.
- The 100 km Christchurch to Akaroa Le Race has been held annually since 2000. It has been described as a "tough hill-climbing event".
- The Tour of Southland is a road bicycle racing stage race held in Southland.
- The Tour de Vineyards is a road cycling race held in and around Richmond. The race exists of both a men's and a women's competition over four stages.
- The Graperide is a 101 km cycling race based around Blenheim.
- The TelstraClear Challenge is a variety of events centred around the Auckland Harbour Bridge and Northern Busway, including a 110 km race and a variety of cycling culture events, taking place for the first time in December 2011.
- New Zealand's most historic cycle race, the Christchurch-to-Timaru event, was discontinued in 2009, after having been held 87 times since 1899. The reason cited was that the traffic management required was too expensive for the small local cycling club to put on the event anymore.
Read more about this topic: Cycling In New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the words events and/or races:
“The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along the primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes one’s way to where the country is.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Behind every individual closes organization; before him opens liberty,—the Better, the Best. The first and worse races are dead. The second and imperfect races are dying out, or remain for the maturing of the higher. In the latest race, in man, every generosity, every new perception, the love and praise he extorts from his fellows, are certificates of advance out of fate into freedom.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)