North Shore resident Damian Woolfall has been described as a “business Swiss Army knife”. With a PhD and an MBA, he’s had a varied career in companies around the world and in the armed forces, in roles ranging from academic to customer service, marketing to operations. He has now found a way to combine his lifelong love affair with motorcycling with business, and is sponsoring one of the sculptures in the WWF-New Zealand Whale Tales exhibition currently running throughout Auckland.
“It’s a new chapter in my life,” Damian says. “Growing up in Liverpool, I became obsessed with motorcycles from about age six after watching Kiwi speedway icon Ivan Mauger. Three and a half years ago I decided to mix this passion with work, and joined New Zealand’s largest motorcycle riding school.”
Prior to this, in his mid-40s, his wife gave him a Honda cbr250r single cylinder thumper – perfect for beginning his now-regular rides (in excess of 15,000kms in all weathers) around some of New Zealand’s most scenic routes. He is also involved in several motorcycle clubs, is a regular track day goer and a weekend tourer to regions as East Cape, the central plateau and Taranaki.
In late 2018, Damian saw an opportunity to bring the joy of motorcycling to the masses, exploring Auckland’s lesser-known beauty spots via motorcycle and sidecar tours on an old-style Royal Enfield and two-seater sidecar. Over the next several months he mapped tour sites, built a website, did several pilot tours with whanau and welcomed his first fare-paying passengers. A few months later, Covid-19 hit and the health and safety risks made the business untenable.
Undeterred, he’s now embarked on a new venture, which he’s called Ride Cloud 9, offering motorcycle training courses on the North Shore and Hibiscus Coast. “I now help people to ‘RideSafe on two wheels’,” he says.
The decision to launch Ride Cloud 9 through sponsoring a sculpture in WWF-Zealand's Whale Tales 2022 exhibition was an easy one, he says. “We feel as a business it’s super important to do good. Given my business partner and wife Rebecca Waddell spent a good chunk of her childhood in the Coromandel, we felt it was vital to support WWF-New Zealand on their mission to help restore the Hauraki Gulf and save the threatened Bryde’s whale.”
The Ride Cloud 9 sculpture, one of 10 large and 15 “pepe” tails on the Shore and Hibiscus Coast, is hard to miss in Takapuna. The “Just Fowln around” tail, by North Shore artist AJ David, is a confection of bright yellow ducks situated outside Takapuna Beach Café, overlooking Takapuna beach.
“We believe this tail, and all the tales, will bring much-needed joy to Tāmaki Makaurau and vital foot traffic to the region,” Damian says.
Damian launches Ride Cloud 9 this year with courses run out of Orewa College, to be followed by Long Bay College.
While the starting point is offering motorcycle training, the plan is to widen this to riding on electric mopeds, targeting year 12 and 13 students. “We plan to work with local North Shore schools to teach teenagers to ride safely on two wheels, before they jump into cars. We believe that by teaching them to ride safely on two wheels [using Zoopa e-mopeds] from around age 14, it will help reduce car accidents the 16-19 group have. Research shows this group has less awareness of risks so are susceptible to car accidents. They are the most vulnerable and pose the greatest risk of harm on roads,” he notes. “By gaining riding skills on e-mopeds they are much better equipped to understand how to interact with other road users and make better decisions to make them safe. “
But for this month, Damian’s reinforcing his connection with the WWF exhibition with offers on his website for North Shore residents to enjoy short sidecar rides around some of the North Shore sculptures. Not quite full circle to his 2018 business venture – but getting close.
