Above : New Plymouth ’ s Daniel Herbert ( bike No . 4 ) powers up this steep hill on his way to finishing fourth in the Gold Grade on Waitangi Day Monday . The picture does not do justice to this feat and it ’ s not until you see the man ( right ) struggling to hold his bike upright that the extreme gradient becomes obvious
could also be described as being quite similar to a typical trials section . Each timed section was separated by a non-timed section or , to put it another way , each lap was divided into four parts , only two of which were counted towards a rider ’ s final lap time . Within The Matrix arena , each of the first three “ dabs ” ( touching a foot to the ground ) would be penalised with 10 seconds being added to a rider ’ s time and any more than that wouldn ’ t be counted against the rider . An engine stall , a dropped bike , or riding out of the course bounds incurred a maximum 50-second penalty . “ Every time I try to improve the event ; making it safer . Historically , the trials club guys and the dirt bike codes do their own thing , but , when I went to the international Red Bull Romaniacs [ extreme enduro event in Romania ], you could see that the trials guys could find traction where nobody else could ,” explained Herbert , “ So this event is a cross-pollination of the bike codes , where they can all learn from one another . Everyone will have learned from something here today . “ Everybody wants to be pushed a little bit out of their comfort zones and my obstacle course is based on The Matrix movie … you can take the red pill or the blue pill , the easy option or the hard
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