WORDS: RAY HERON
PHOTOS: BEN WILKINS
MOT
WE’VE SEEN THE CRAZY YOUTUBE
VIDEOS, SO WE WENT ALONG
TO MEET THE CONEHEADS IN A
WELLINGTON CARPARK...
O
n a cold winter’s evening in Wellington,
most people are hurriedly making
their way to the bus terminal, the
train station, or joining the rat race on the
motorway, trying to get home.
However, this was not the case for a small
group of motorcycle enthusiasts, who go by
the name of Cone Heads. Every Thursday
evening the Wellington Coneheads meet in
the Outlet city carpark in Tawa, for what is
called MotoGymkhana. We’ve seen the crazy
videos on YouTube, so decided to attend
their introductory night and find out what it’s
all about.
Motorcycle gymkhana (or Moto Gymkhana)
is defined by Wikipedia as “a motorcycle
time trial sport, in which riders compete to
manoeuvre in the shortest time through a
paved course restricted by traffic cones or
other obstacles.”
It was around 5:30pm when I arrived at the
designated carpark, joining another three
first time Moto Gymkhana riders on bikes
ranging from a Suzuki GSX150 to a high-bar’d
Harley.
Once the pleasantries were exchanged, and
introductions made, the cones came out
and we wasted no time warming up with
some slaloms up and back between cones
set out at 2.5m intervals. Next was a wide
slalom where the cones were closer together,
but offset by a few metres, meaning you
effectively had a full lock hairpin turn to
get around the cone. Though not exactly
challenging, this was a good warm up for
what was in store for the rest of the night.
Our first drill was to ride along weaving left
and right, trying to get the handle bars from
lock to lock while keeping the bike moving.
This was difficult to start with, but with a bit
KIWI RIDER 29