Event organisers faced with bad weather conditions may be forced to put contingency plans in place to protect mountain bike tracks in the Whakarewarewa Forest after thousands of dollars of damage from a race.
Repairs to tracks damaged from last weekend's Cateye Moonride - a race involving teams and solo riders completing laps of a short course - are estimated to cost $5000, with another $2000 for the big field at the Waipa car park.
The event was organised by Rotorua events company Event Promotions. It cancelled the 24-hour mountain bike event on the Friday night because of poor weather but continued with its six and 12-hour races on Saturday. The course was changed to remove two pieces of singletrack - Genesis and Challenge - but other tracks were damaged, with about 1km of tracks needing to be overhauled.
Redwoods Visitor Centre manager Julianne Wilkinson said event organisers paid a fee to use the forest but if any repairs were "over and above" normal wear and tear then the organiser was liable to pay. Event Promotions will foot the bill for repairs, which the Rotorua Mountain Bike Club began yesterday. "We want events to happen in the forest but we need to put in place measures to manage these events," Mrs Wilkinson said.
"We were reliant on the event organiser using their common sense to make the right decision. We'll have a review and use it to move forward."