I’ve been really lucky during our trip to New Zealand to be able to do a lot of mountain biking. First, I got a job at a bike shop which allowed me to afford all of the gear as I hadn’t brought anything with me from Canada. And second, we ended up in an awesome spot in New Zealand that has a huge mountain biking scene. The second part might have been planned, but we’re still very lucky and being able to do a lot of riding has completely changed our experience in New Zealand.

On this particular trip, Hilary drove me to the top of the Coronet Ski Field in Queenstown (if you look across the valley in the picture, you can see the road going to the top of the Remarkables ski field as well). I then rode my bike from the end of the road to the very top of the mountain and rode a trail called the Coronet XC track. This then turned into a trail called Corotown which takes you all of the way from Coronet Peak to Arrowtown. It was a really long descent but very unique in that you travel a long ways and cover a lot of ground and never really have to climb any hills along the way.

To take this photo, I only had my camera in my backpack and didn’t have a tripod or intervalometer so instead I set my camera on the ground on top of my pack and set up the shot that I wanted. I then set a 10 second timer and quickly rode my bike down to the spot that I wanted to be in the photo. After a few failed attempts, I was finally quick enough to get there and come to a complete stop with my feet on the ground. I guess that’s what you can expect when you try to mix mountain biking with photography when you’re by yourself.