Graeme Simpson: Sometimes it's about the noise you make

Filmed by Bikes, The World's Best Bike Films, from Portland, Oregon is coming to Rotorua as part of the Singlespeed World Championships in November. Photo/Filmed by Bikes

There are a lot of aspects of working on events that resonate and reward.

One of my favourites, especially now I'm only involved every so often, is reconnecting with excellent people.

Example: the Singlespeed World Championships in November. That's right across the board from the organising committee, the Rotorua Singlespeed Society, to some of the (over) excited entrants and the mountain bike media.

There's something special about singlespeed events that gets wheels spinning and heads turning. The New Zealand MTB media have embraced it, again.

New Zealand Mountain Biker was there at the start in 2008 with founding publisher and editor, Bruce Wilson, and art director, Nick Lambert supporting the first national championships the Society ran.

Caleb Smith from Spoke was there, too. And on the Monday after race day, Derek Morrison, a Kiwi and editor of Australian Mountain Bike, got in touch, through local photographer, Graeme Murray, requesting a story. The magazine was on print deadline so it was a fast turnaround.

Bruce left the editor's seat at NZMTBR not long after this. New editor, Carl Patton rode in and wrote about the 2010 Singlepeed World Championships and Nick took the photos.

Caleb and Derek have also made a move, but those who followed them are just as receptive to singlespeed stories.

Brett Kennedy succeeded Caleb at Spoke and now runs a superb website, chainslapmag.com. Laura Williamson is the current Spoke editor and wrote the story about this year's event in the current issue.

Australian Mountain Bike magazine continued to back Singlespeed Society events. The editor in 2010 was Chris Southwood. He rode in the World Champs in a Cycling New Zealand silver fern skin suit.

This featured in a fantastic film about Rotorua mountain biking called Be Rude Not To, produced by Graeme Murray. Google it.

With Mick Ross, Chris then established the hugely successful Flow Mountain Bike website. They're supporting this year's world championships.

Current AMB editor is Mike Blewitt.

He sent multiple 24 hour Solo Singlespeed World Champion, Brett Bellchambers, to Rotorua in 2015 to cover the Anzac Singlespeed Championships.

The story was very funny and perfectly captured the event in all its extravagant glory. That included 'someone' from the organising committee forgetting to pick Brett up from the airport. That won't happen again.

The media support doesn't stop at Australia. Pinkbike is covering it and so is IMBike. The latter has more than half a million Facebook friends.

Sometimes it's not just about the numbers (of entries) it's also about the noise you make.

The Singlespeed Society's commitment to great charitable causes over 10 years has paid off in an unexpected way.

Filmed by Bike, the World's Best Bike Movies is based in Portland, Oregon.

Their one-hour programme is available to anyone wanting to screen them at a cost. They have a heavily discounted rate for community groups.

The Singlespeed Society was successful in applying for this.

The programme will play at the Pig and Whistle as part of the festivities and the $111 entry fee.

This also covers a superb, one-off collector's T-shirt from Nzo, beverages and a party after the race on Saturday November 18 and Big Kiwi Brekkie, the next morning. You can singlespeed your bike for the day ... or not even race at all.

Enter at www.rotoruasinglespeed.com before October 1 to get that T-shirt.