August 03, 2023
Tuhoto-Ariki Pene mountain biking king
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A Māori mountain bike rider has been named 2023 king of the Crankworx mountain biking world series that finished in Canada last weekend.
22-year-old Tuhoto-Ariki Pene from Rotorua credits his whānau and his BMX background for giving him the foundational skills which helped him master the multiple mountain biking disciplines.
“The whānau helped me heaps. We all used to race and travel around in a bus to all the BMX events and like we used to go to sleep on a Friday night in the bus and dad used to drive us, mum and dad used to drive us to somewhere and we used to wake up go for a ride on the weekend and race on the weekend. Was like that for years. I reckon that like having those skills from BMX comes over and yeah, did pretty good. And it paid off it was pretty fun,’ he says.
The Crankworx world series started in March at Rotorua and included events in Cairns, Australia, Innsbruck Austria and Whistler in Canada.