Shania Rawson maintains momentum over the “rollers” – undulating sections of the track – by pumping, or using her body weight and riding technique, to keep the bike moving without pedal power. Photo / Ultimate Sports NZ
Shania Rawson maintains momentum over the “rollers” – undulating sections of the track – by pumping, or using her body weight and riding technique, to keep the bike moving without pedal power. Photo / Ultimate Sports NZ
Twelve months after an accident that put her in hospital for weeks, Gisborne-based Shania Rawson has qualified for the pump track world championships in China in October.
Rawson grew up in Tauranga and moved to Gisborne with her partner six months ago.
She booked her world championship spot by winningthe women’s qualifying event at Morgan Park, Waihī, last month. The championships will be held on October 17 in Beijing. It will be Rawson’s first visit to China.
Pump track racing is a cycling discipline where riders use their body weight and “pumping” techniques – rather than pedalling – to generate momentum on a looped course of undulations and banked turns. Riders compete singly, against the clock.
Rawson, 27, has never had an accident riding pump track.
But at the Christchurch Adventure Park in February last year she fell during downhill practice for the Crankworx Summer Series.
“I was in hospital for a few weeks,” she said. “I had concussion. I crushed my femoral nerve in my right leg, and it’s numb all the time; I’ve been told feeling might come back. I do flexibility and strengthening exercises for it.
“I broke my right hip; I still have problems with it. I landed on my left arm and broke the wrist in three places. Rehab went well, and I don’t have any issues with it any more.”
Asked whether she was nervous the first time she got back on a bike, Rawson said: “I wasn’t too scared, really.”
Three weeks after her accident early last year, Shania Rawson (right) poses with her friend and current two-time pump track world champion Sabina Kosarkova.
The national pump track championships in Rotorua in September marked her return to competition. She won the elite women’s title.
Rawson has raced bikes since she was 4 years old, first on BMX, then mountain bikes and – for the past seven years – on the pump track.
“It [pump track] feels similar to a BMX track, except shorter and without the start gate, and with minimal pedalling,” she said.
“You might put in two pedal cranks at the start and the rest is momentum.”
She had not long been competing in pump track when she attended her first world championship in 2018 – the inaugural year for the champs as an annual event – in Arkansas, United States.
She trains six days a week, with time on the bike and in the gym on every one of those days.
Pump track rider Shania Rawson with her “ticket to Beijing” after she qualified for a spot in the world championships, to be held in October. Photo / Ultimate Sports NZ
“I have a stationary bike at home for wet days. When it’s dry, I mix up my training ... it might be more endurance-based some days, I could go for a ride on my road bike, do full laps of the pump track with minimal rest, or do something skills-based, like cornering and jumping.”
When she is not training, competing or travelling to compete, Rawson works part-time as a fitness trainer in a gym, and runs her own business, Elevated by Shania Rawson, in which she coaches bike technique to individuals and groups.
Part of pump track’s appeal is the range of tracks, and each of them is different, Rawson says.
“It’s a very competitive sport. We’re lucky in Gisborne that funding was available to get a pump track built, and it happens to be one of the best in New Zealand.”
The track is “about a 30-second bike ride” from Grey St, opposite the skate park, and is in Alfred Cox Park between Kahutia St houses and Waikanae Creek. It can also be reached from Derby St.
Development of the pump track was part of the $2.8 million skate park redevelopment, primarily funded by Trust Tairāwhiti and driven by Tairāwhiti Adventure Trust. The track was opened in May 2022.
