Whirinaki Ride

The track is in the Whirinaki National Park which is managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). It has only been very recent that DOC have started to allow mountain bikers back into selected wilderness areas so we were keen to show our support for this initiative.

I would like to say I have been looking forward to this ride for a long time but since I only read about it in the June/July NZ MTBer magazine and the trail only officially opened in mid-August I could be called a liar. I can say I have been looking forward to this ride for a very short time, but I have been really really looking forward to it! The review in the magazine and the feedback I have read from other riders suggests this 2 or so hour ride in virgin native bush is just stunning so it sounded like the perfect warm up for the Day Night thriller 12 hour event the following day.

My normal riding buddy – Miles (I am going to use names from now on) picked me up at 7.00 AM Friday morning with coffee at the BP being the first stop for the day. We had an uneventful, and quite fast trip to Rotorua arriving about 30 minutes earlier than expected so we stopped in for a coffee at Fat Dog, met up with Brent who was riding with us and then went looking for a bakery to pick up some lunch for later on. I spotted a bakery and noticed it was next to a new bike shop Kiwi Bikes, owned by Jeff who custom builds bike frames. I have never met Jeff before but have seen his beautifully crafted steel frames under a number of fellow single speeders, in fact there are 2 of them in the Essence Bicycle SS teams at tomorrow’s race. Jeff is a pretty cool guy, had a good chat, rode his SS around and got measured up in case I want to order a frame ! – which I do. This could be the plan for next year. While I love the geometry of the DMR it is a bit too small for XC racing, a frame an inch or so larger but keep the style and geometry of the DMR would be perfect. We then carried on down towards the Whirinaki forest, I have not been down to that part of NZ in well over 20 years, it is quite rugged, quite beautiful and for the folk living there, quite poor, verging on Deliverance country. We got to the car park earlier than expect and had to wait around for a while for Colin who was coming up from Wellington.

Though the day had started off wet and cold, by the time we hit the forest the clouds had parted and we spent an hour waiting here ;




Could there be anything better ? I really regret not having a decent camera, my next purchase major purchase, even before bike stuff, is going to be a camera.

Once Colin arrived we set off on the ride, the trail was wonderfully crafted, a fairly gentle gradient led the way up into the hills. For most of the rise the track was fairly wide single track, well benched and with a number of water bars, there were a couple of fire road sections and one log ride over a gully. The whole track was easily rideable, though I chose to walk a couple of sections to avoid blowing out the day before a race.

At the top of the climb we stopped here for photos and a snack.


The forest was incredible to ride through, sub-tropical native bush full of massive Tawa, Kahikatiha and Rimu trees (I think). From the mid-way stop there was a 1-2km downhill that was grin inducingly good, not steep, just long and swoopy, fast but not furious – oh was I smiling when it ended…

There was another longish climbing section out of the park, which reduced the width of the grin a bit but it is such a lovely place that even climbing was good.

After 1.45 we popped out of the forest and into the car park and into the waiting arms of 2 DOC workers. These were the 2 guys who built the track, neither were bikers – they said so, but you could tell by their size ! They had had some guidance from one of the local Rotorua riders but the rest of the trail was there own work. It was hard to believe that this trail had not been built by riders and experienced trail builders, it was so well constructed. They were so keen to discuss the track with us, their enthusiasm was quite infectious, we discussed various sections of the trail and why they did it the way they did and did we like the log, and were the water bars too intrusive. Great to see such enthusiasm for delivery a quality product from DOC.

After they left Miles and I took a slow drive down to Taupo and purchased some supplies for the race tomorrow. We then drove out to our Friday night accommodation with Graham and Nici at Nici’s family bach in Kinloch, had a beer or two and went to bed.

It was a great day !