Darren fell in love with cycling when he was 18 after watching the Tour de France, but he never rode seriously until he hit his early 20’s. As he got more serious about the sport, he had an epiphany, realising that working in a bike shop would allow him the time to train and learn everything possible about bikes.
Darren has always been mechanically minded so becoming a mechanic was a perfect for him, after working in several shops he joined the CYCO crew in 1996.
During a four year sabbatical from CYCO, Darren ran the Mavic service centre for New Zealand and supported the Mavic sponsored riders during the MTB world champs in Rotorua. He also travelled throughout France training with the Mavic team.
Returning to NZ, Darren took over as the workshop manager of CYCO and ultimately, in 2015, Darren took ownership of the store and moved it to Kingsland
Darren’s palmarès over his time racing include representing NZ at the Tour of Taiwan and the Tour of Japan, he raced in Holland for an offshoot of the Rabobank team and had reasonable success. In NZ, he won around Taupo, a stage of Tour of Southland, and won/was on the podium in numerous one day races and stages of tours. He finished second in the Sprint race in both the Tour of Southland and Tour of Wellington.
