Spotted over on the Planetski is a news story that suggests that the slopestyle and gravity event known as Crankworx may be on its way to Wales.

Crankworx is well known as being a series of events that tour various countries. Apparently it was during an interview with Crankworx’s general manager Darren Kinnaird that news of a Welsh approach was mentioned.

It’s clearly (very) early days at the moment but we think it sounds like a great idea to host a Crankworx round in the UK.

Crankworx at Bikepark Wales?

The question actually mentioned Fort William as a potential Crankworx venue but Kinnaird’s reply revealed that BikePark Wales had already been it touch.

Kinnaird is quoted as saying about BikePark Wales: “I’ve been there. It’s looking really good, but maybe needs a couple of years before we would do it there. We’ve had interest from a few destinations who would like to have the festival at their resort and we could expand to have more than the four stops we hold now. We’ll see how it goes.”

“That’s how we came to Rotorua. We’d been talking to people in Australia about holding it in Thredbo and got to hear though hotel owners about this place in New Zealand where there was this really dedicated riding community. That’s the type of place we want to be to showcase great mountain biking,”

Despite being a bike event, Crankworx was born out of the ski industry over in Whistler in the early noughties who wanted to get more people into the resort during summer ie. the skiing off-season.

It was an immediate success and has lead to the international series of Crankworx events happening all over the world today. This year for example, sees Crankworx events taking place in Rotorua in New Zealand, Les Gets, Innsbruck and Whistler.