Get your legs pumpin’ – head out on the trailway…
The summer months are a perfect time to enjoy the natural beauty of our country. Craig Sisterson talks to lawyers who do their exploring on two wheels, off the tar-sealed track
Along with being plenty of fun, and the obvious health benefits, the fantastic thing about mountain biking is that you can cover a lot more outdoors territory than if you’re running or hiking, says Sarah Harvey, a partner in the Queenstown office of Cruickshank Pryde. “You can go a long way on a mountain bike, and get into places you otherwise wouldn’t get into.” For Harvey, this is most often the hills of the Southern Lakes District – the same picturesque place she was introduced to the outdoors pursuit after returning from working in the United Kingdom three years ago. “I got into it through my friends and family. I went out with them for a ride near Wanaka and thought ‘this is fantastic’, so then I went and bought my first bike.”
Tom Evatt, partner in Christchurch firm White Fox and Jones, also became hooked on off-road riding on those Wanaka hills. While spending time in Queenstown as part of his first degree at Lincoln University, he “did a lot of mountain biking and multisport”, and when he returned to Canterbury he “just carried on with mountain biking” as his extracurricular recreation. Living out in Sumner, he commutes to work three or four times a week. “Sometimes I’ll ride home via the Port Hills, on my mountain bike,” he says. “And then on the weekend, I’ll go out for a blast on some of the good local circuits on the hills up behind Sumner that you can ride in an hour or an hour and a half. It’s a good physical workout, with a bit of skill and a bit of adrenalin – as opposed to road biking which is just down a great big dirty stretch of tar-seal. So I guess there’s a bit of everything in it.”
Wanaka Law founding partner Chris Steven, on the other hand, finds both road cycling and mountain biking exciting. The first full-time resident lawyer in Wanaka (when he started practising there in 1986), Steven fell in love with pedal power after surgeons told him he wasn’t allowed to run any more. “I did have a battered old thing I used to blat around on for exercise, but certainly for the last five or six years I’ve [biked] on a more regular basis.” For Steven, this has included both recreational rides on the weekends with his family, and some events such as the Contact Epic and Motatapu mountain bike races and a 180 kilometre road bike for Challenge Wanaka. “It keeps you sane,” he says. “If I didn’t have [biking], I would be very sedentary, very much my health would go backwards, and I’d probably go nuts. Getting out and having a really good blowout is just brilliant.”
Getting out of the office and having that physical blowout away from the city is one of the things that Chapman Tripp’s Zoe Thompson most enjoys about mountain biking. “It is such a fantastic combination of fitness, adventure, and adrenalin – you can explore new places, get fit, and get a great buzz all in a few hours,” says the Auckland-based solicitor. “I also love that mountain biking always involves getting away from concrete and into the wild!” Thompson rides most weekends when she can in her “home forest” of Woodhill, and recently started competing in races also. “I competed in the Xterra triathlon in April last year, and am hoping to compete in the Xterra series in North America this year. I also do social races with friends such as the 12/24 hour night rides, which are a lot of fun.”
Whether competing or cruising, mountain biking allows you to get out there and up close with some of the most beautiful parts of our country (and many other countries, if you venture abroad). “It’s exhilarating; you’re riding tracks along rivers and around lakes,” says Steven. “It’s just incredible – you get fantastic scenery. Riding around Lake Hawea for example, 130 kilometres up and downhill, the views there are just quite amazing. Going along the bluffs… it’s pretty awesome stuff.”
Evatt feels the same way about riding in the hills up behind his Sumner home. “You get beautiful views down to Lyttleton Harbour, across to the Head and Taylor’s Mistake, and all up the coast. So it’s a pretty amazing place to be riding around.” The resource management specialist is also currently involved with “trying to get some tracks on the Port Hills off the gondola”, which could add even more to the local mountain biking experience. Unsurprisingly, he is a fan of Prime Minister John Key’s New Zealand Cycle Trail, which would combine new and existing trails into a linked nationwide network. “I think it’s pretty fantastic. It’s got people thinking about cycling, and however it takes form it’s got to be a good thing.”
Evatt believes having a passion or hobby outside the office is absolutely crucial for lawyers. “If you haven’t got one, you’ve got to find one. There’s got to be more to it than work. I know my wife’s much happier with me riding home rather than driving home, because you get a bit of physical activity, and it’s healthy for both body and soul… I think the fitter you are, the better you are able to manage intellectual demands.”
Thompson also thinks outside (and preferably outdoor) interests are vital for lawyers. “We would all go crazy otherwise.” And as Harvey sees it, “you’ve got to have something that takes you outside, keeps you fit and healthy, and gets you in the fresh air and sunshine.”
With plenty of that on offer throughout the country over the summer months, now is a perfect time to get out into and enjoy the natural beauty of New Zealand, perhaps on two wheels, wherever you are in our scenic country. Or as Evatt says, “just get out there and do something, whether it’s mountain biking or something else”.
NZLawyer, issue 128, 22 January 2010