Te Ahi Manawa, “The Burning Heart”, is another favourite trail of mine although one I don’t ride enough. It takes a technical line through some beautiful forest on the South Eastern side of the trail and descends down to Lake Rotokakahi (Green Lake).

In this video it looks like I’m just pootling along, I’m certainly not pushing the envelope!! Its a narrow trail with lots of nadgery bits and trees to clack your bars on. When pushing hard it is a significant challenge.

The A line branch hop seen at 00:01:14 is actually easier than it looks but requires good commitment. I’ve ridden it before easily enough but forgot it was coming this time down and its definitely something to be ready for.

Billy T starts just up the hill from the drop off of the Hill Road shuttles and is, therefore, a popular well ridden grade 4 trail in the Redwoods. It starts through native bush before popping out into the post apocolyptic wasteland of recently harvested forest. G-Rock continues on through the nuclear winter-esque landscape via some big corners.

As a Grade 4 trail its fun technical and flowy then gets fast and loose as it breaks into the open. The big drop (seen in the video) has been replaced since filming with a big table top boosting into a super fast lander. I preferred the drop but the new feature is still fun.