Maximum Maidstone

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of heading out to Upper Hutt to check out the new jump line that Jimmy and Thomas at TGL Contracting had put in. The line isn’t totally new, Bryn Dickerson had begun something a few years ago, but without a large digger and fresh gravy, progress stalled. When the Upper Hutt City Council commissioned TGL to revitalise the old Maidstone Max DH track as well as rebuild and finish the jump line, the gears started turning in Jimmy’s solid head. Having recently returned from a Canadian trip to Squamish and Whistler, he knew what the region needed. It turns out it needed an A-line sized jump line! Unlike A-Line though, these jumps are all doubles, but the flow, creativity, and size is all there. Jimmy and Bryn had done a couple of test laps during the build, but this was the first real session. International man of Mystery Mike Evans had made the trip out from Korokoro to join myself, Elliot and my nephew Malachai, and Jimmy was there to shred what he’d built.

The track snakes down the hill and comprises of 11 or so features, right out of the gate you hit a small road gap followed by main rhythm section which culminates in a nice step-down fadeaway right handed hip. After that there’s a sweet stepdown into a high-speed berm that feeds you into a sweet step-up, then it’s an on-off up-box followed by a high-speed gap to berm and then the final massive double. If you know me, you know I wouldn’t make it off the start ramp, but Mike, Elliot and Malachai all confirmed that the trail just flowed, no brakes where needed and no pedal strokes either, if thats not a compliment to the builder I don’t know what is. It’s obviously gonna get a little faster when summer comes around, but that’s just gonna mean more height! No more words are needed really, here’s some photos.