Creating space in Rodney for cycle trails
Currently there are 23 'Great Rides' around the country, cycle trails that attract cycling tourism and stimulate local economies but none of them are in the Auckland Province.
New Zealand marathon great Allison Roe is the founding Chairperson of the Matakana Coast Trail Trust, she spoke to Jesse about the issue.
Photo:
Supplied
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
6 minutes ago
- RNZ News
NZ's Laurence Pithie to make Tour de France debut
Laurence Pithie leads teammates at altitude training ahead of his debut in the Tour de France. Photo: Red Bull Content Pool / Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe / Oriol Castello Christchurch professional cyclist Laurence Pithie will become the 19th New Zealander to contest the famed Tour de France when racing begins next week. Pithie is the only New Zealand rider in the 112th edition of the iconic annual sporting contest, which begins in Lille, in northern France on Monday and finishes 3339kms over 21 stages later, on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. He rides for the Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe team, with his role to support the team's big hope, Slovenian Primoz Roglic, a four-time Grand Tour champion who has yet to conquer the Tour de France. After initially turning professional as a teenager with Groupama-FDJ based in France, when Pithie moved to his current team they saw his potential as a Tour de France rider. "It comes down to form and how you are going but the plan was to be ready and fit for the Tour. I did altitude training camps and I am in good form. To get the call-up was pretty awesome," Pithie said. "It's my first Tour de France and sure it is a little bit daunting but I am super-excited." Pithie comes off a strong performance in the key lead-up race of the Criterium du Dauphiné, and has this week completed a tough altitude camp at 2400m in Andorra, where he lives. "The Dauphine has definitely given me confidence. I went in with good form although not knowing how I would stack up. But I got better as the race went on and it was a big confidence-boost for me. "The TDF is a different race and a lot longer. I need to take the opportunity with both hands. My favourite part of the sport is racing, so now all the hard work I have put in over the last month especially will be put on show." Slovenian Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates celebrates as he beats Slovenian Primoz Roglic Photo: DAVID STOCKMAN Pithie's role is to support Roglic who has stage wins on the Tour but not the overall honours which have been dominated by Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma) over the past five years. "He (Roglic) is super-strong and has great experience in Grand Tours so I will be racing every day to protect him and give him the best possible chance of going for the yellow jersey," said Pithie. Pithie, who turns 23 years midway through the Tour, will have his father on the sidelines to cheer him on. "It will be great to have Dad there. I have also had messages from people back at home who are coming here to watch. So I am looking forward to some support from the kiwi contingent over here and the people back home." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
6 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Laishon Albert-Jones blazes own NZ Warriors pathway despite royal lineage
Laishon Albert-Jones finally gets to play at Mt Smart. Photo: Andrew Cornaga/ Laishon Albert-Jones admits she has spent many of her formative years frequenting Mt Smart Stadium - now she finally gets to play there. Descended from NZ Warriors royalty - namely uncle Stacey Jones, a 261-game club legend - Albert-Jones, 27, is one of the most experienced members of the revived women's programme, which returns to NRLW competition on Saturday, after a four-year hiatus . In the meantime, she has pursued her own career across the Tasman with Newcastle Knights, helping them to a 2023 championship under new Warriors coach Ron Griffiths. "This is very exciting," Albert-Jones said. "It's definitely been a dream, since I was very young. "I've been around this club for a little while, but never thought I'd ever play for them. Now I get to play for them." Despite her familiarity with the Warriors, she is adamant she intends stamping her own mark on the club and does not feel the weight of expectation that comes with her family name. "Yeah, Stacey is my uncle and that, but I don't feel no pressure," she said. "I am me and get to play how I want to play, different positions and get to write my own story this time round. "We've always talked about footy quite a lot. I always say he doesn't help, but he does help, especially with game-specific stuff and general knowledge. "When I was in Newy, it was kind of hard, but now he's literally a couple of streets away from me." Ironically, their paths have rarely crossed lately, despite Jones' ongoing role as Warriors men's assistant, under coach Andrew Webster. "I actually haven't seen him in a little while, that's quite concerning," she said. "They're always away and we're always busy." Albert-Jones started out in the halves, before moving into the pack. Initially, she benefited from having 'The Little General' at her disposal. "I remember I was trying to learn how to be a better kicker," Albert-Jones recalled. "He used to tell me, 'Just go kick a tennis ball around off the top of your foot'. Laishon Albert-Jones won an NRLW premiership with Newcastle Knights. Photo: NRL Photos/ "Kinda worked actually - that's one tip I remember he's given me." Perhaps another inherited skill was her wily ability to bluff her way onto the field. Albert-Jones admits she was initially recruited by Griffiths for the Knights as a lock, where she will pack down against defending NRLW champions Sydney Roosters this week, but became frustrated at her lack of gametime. "I was getting over sitting on the bench for him, so I told our captain, 'Tell him to put me at [second] row, I can play [second] row'. I've never told him this, but that was the first time I'd played [second] row. "He called me and said, 'You know what you're doing, eh?' and I was, like, 'Yeah, 100 percent'. "It worked out and I stayed there, so lucky me, I guess." Only six others in the Warriors gameday squad have played NRLW before, so her teammates will draw heavily on Albert-Jones' experience at Newcastle, especially as they transition several from the 'other' rugby code, including sevens star Michaela Brake . "They've actually done an amazing job," she said. "I was a little sceptical about them all coming in, because there are quite a lot of them, but they're all top athletes that love playing sport. "Just anything competitive, they're good at." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
12 hours ago
- RNZ News
NZ firm Vantaset sets sights on UK, US law enforcement agencies
Chief executive of Vantaset, Craig Steel, and former Olympic swimmer Moss Burmester. Photo: Supplied What is claimed as a first-of-its-kind workplace performance service from New Zealand is gaining global attention from law enforcement and defence agencies. Vantaset was founded by New Zealand performance strategist and former sports coach Craig Steel. Developed over seven years at a cost of $7 million, the framework has grown into a paid service model designed for government and corporate clients. Steel said critical agencies were a focus for his business, especially those in the Five Eyes nations. The online platform is designed to improve business strategy and increase workplace performance through a framework based on high-performance sport environments, similar to how a coach would oversee a team or athlete. A number of trials are in discussion with police forces in North America and the United Kingdom. They have also signed agreements with a specialist consulting firm that supports government security and law enforcement agencies throughout Europe and North America, including the FBI. However, Steel said because of the sensitive nature of their work, he could not disclose their name. "They work with all of the law enforcement agencies right across Canada and a very high number in the US, including the likes of the FBI. "They're branded, but they can't disclose their brand so the FBI can't disclose the brand. But yes, they are a very legitimate agency of about 160-odd people. "They're domiciled in Canada, but they have agents right throughout the Americas, right down into South America, up into Canada and Alaska, etc. Plus they also do work into Europe. "You turn up to their office, and I've been there many times, and they don't even have a number over the door, it's quite interesting." It's not Vantaset's first foray into police environments. Nine years ago they were brought on to improve performance with New Zealand Police by then-commissioner Mike Bush. Following pilot programmes in Counties Manukau, Auckland City and Southern Districts, Bush used an early iteration of the programme to align the vision and prevention-first strategy for all 14,000 staff working out of more than 300 stations around the country. At that time Bush had noted police were dealing with declining public confidence, poor productivity, falling retention, engagement, levels and morale. Bush wanted a single programme, rather than relying on previous performance management mechanisms that didn't have the same reach across the organisation. Steel said an example of this was streamlining aspects of the organisation, including reducing the more than 6000 job descriptions within the police to a handful. A New Zealand Police case study in 2017 said: "Within 18 months of deploying Vantaset's transformation programme, Bush had lifted public trust and confidence from the 56 percent as it was following the COI to 81 percent. Further to this, an impressive 90 percent of Kiwis said they were either 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' with the service police was now providing; a number many times greater than those enjoyed by similar nations. What's more, he achieved this while reducing crime across New Zealand by 20 percent. " Police said in a statement they have had a partnership with Vantaset for approximately nine years, but the contract would not continue past 30 June 2025. Chief executive of Vantaset, Craig Steel. Photo: Supplied Steel said the basis for the service came from three decades of research into the psychological breaking point of elite athletes to improve workplace performance. He said the conception was understanding why athletes collapse under pressure. "They do that at a very precise point, so it's at a point where a person comes to believe that the challenge they're up against is greater than the vision they have of themselves. "So what that said to me is that irrespective of the nature of the sport or the nature of the athlete, people capitulate at a very precise point. "What I identified was what I call the layering, which is essentially the process that athletes unconsciously work through that leads to that, what I found was that that was identical in every athlete and the people that we started sharing it with started saying to us, this is a monumental breakthrough in human performance, but we needed to test it. "So as a result of that, what I looked at was if that's what causes capitulation, what would happen if we reverse engineered it? So we take the modeling or the methodology, we invert it, so we start to look through a different lens and say, if we apply the same rationale, but in reverse, can we increase the point at which an athlete capitulates? "In other words, extend it - and what we found is that every time we tested it, people produce personal best within two weeks." The sports connections do not end there - former Olympic swimmers Moss Burmester and Anthony Mosse are among the team, as is former All Blacks manager Darren Shand. Burmester used Steel's approach to performance when he was competing and said you can transfer aspects of the sports field to the workplace. "If you look at a rugby team and you go, right, there's only 15 positions - how do we make them the very best in their position and empower them to go out there and play their best in their 80 minutes? "Same thing - how do we make people feel like they're valued, they're critical, they matter, and they can have a real impact for the team?" Burmester said just like in sport, it was important for staff to understand their roles and how that played a part of the "game plan" of a business or organisation. "It seems very obvious and it's laughable, but that's exactly what we see and so we sit there and we think, well, no wonder organisations aren't getting the best out of people, unlocking the potential in people. "They're just putting them into these boxes, they're not engaging them." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
