Evening all,

I’m travelling to Christchurch next week for 3 months working as a project engineer for a site install. There is 14 days isolation so coming out start of July. I’ve booked three weeks off end of the trip to explore the Malborough area as I’ve already explored the majority of NZ whilst working for 2 years when I was 18.

I plan on bringing my scott spark with me to get some riding done weekends and evenings.

1. Anyone in the area up for a ride at some point?
2. Any advice on the mountain biking in the area, bearing in mind it’ll be winter.

Thanks and any advice knowledge is appreciated.

A NZ winter isn’t the same as a UK winter and there is generally no snow and temps are more like a British summer. In chch expect cold mornings, but still sunny days with the temps in the low teens.

There is plenty of riding up on the port hills City Council trail map

Plus there is the adventure park there with a chairlift and 400m vertical.

City Council trail map

Definitely worth taking the bike then and also 90 minutes away from the ski fields.

theres a thriving scene in Christchurch (well most of NZ actually) go to GoatcyclesNZ in Christchurch, ask for Sam and get stuck in, he will ride you to death, give you beer afterwards and then hook you up with the right people in Marlborough

Thanks very much Steve, I’ll go in after my 14 days in prison (Isolation)

no probs, expect to ride a lot and lots of variety, plan your time off (assuming you get any if you are commissioning) to make most use of travelling to new areas in the south island for riding, stay local to Christchurch in the evenings, if you do get the chance head towards Central Otago for amazing winter scenes

Do you every ride with anything much gnarlier than a Spark? You might find you get overwhelmed on a lot of the riding round ChCh. You’ll love the long loop out from Castle Rock, John Britten, Greenwoods and Taylors mistake on that.

Never been, but from what I’ve heard make sure that bike is cleaner than clean before packing it, especially the tyres. The NZ customs are very careful about risk to the environment from foreign plant diseases. My BIL forgot about a pear in his backpack, cue 400 quid fine and nearly a full cavity search 🙁

Kahurangi – My initial plan is to put semi slicks on and whilst I’m working use it mainly for road training then buy some tyres in nz or order from Germany when I move up to Malborough. I can handle the Peak District on the spark so some trails may be out of bounds but hopefully there will be some ones I can do.

Feed – Yes putting on fresh tyres and cleaning everything on Sunday before I pack.

Wipe it down with dettol or similar and then leave the rag in the box, they like that 😉

and have your shoes at the top of the box, soles up.

road training

I trust you mean riding laps of Dyers pass road or the Rapaki Track then back down through Vic Park? 🙂

Agree with the bike and kit cleaning; having taken my bike there several times in the last 25 years. They are very welcoming if you are understanding of their position.

My wife and daughter are in NZ at the moment, the MIQ are a military operation and expect a rigour not found here in all aspects. The flight out had 15 people on it via Singapore, they stayed on the plane all the time. Hotels are varied, but run very well.

Have you had both vaccines? Take proof with you if so.

Kahurangi – Do you have to pay to ride through victoria park?

@shorty121 no – Vic Park is a typical park with some formal gardens and walking tracks and heaps of volunteer built and maintained mtb trails. Plenty of flow tracks and gnarlier tracks. A few jump lines but they were never my thing. I don’t know if you have to pay to ride down through CAP or if they just charge for the uplift.