Soon after arriving in New Zealand, we bought a pair of used bikes for $50. It turned out to be an excellent deal, and we rode those bikes all over the country. Over six months, we did a lot of cycling in New Zealand. We cycled for exercise and to get around, from marinas and campsites. The bikes made life in New Zealand easier and better.
Why walk when you can pedal, am I right? Nothing against walking, and the hiking in New Zealand is stellar, but you can cover so much more ground by bike. We love seeing the world from our bicycle seats: you get closer than a car, while much faster than walking. Still, we had to make some adjustments to cycling in New Zealand.
Getting Used to Cycling in New Zealand
We bought our bikes very soon after arriving in New Zealand, which helped get me used to using the other side of the road. After a few weeks of cycling in New Zealand, I was ready to drive on the left in the campervan. Overall, I found drivers in New Zealand pretty good with cyclists; I think they’re more aggressive towards pedestrians. We followed the rules and wore our helmets, stayed in bike lanes when possible, and everything went well for us.
How Kiwis Ride
Most parts of New Zealand are not set up for commuter cycling. There are bike paths, but they’re usually in nature reserves and not alongside roads. When I lived and worked in Toronto, I biked everywhere, like many others. Kiwis are not generally bike commuters. Someone said it’s because their traffic isn’t bad so people don’t need to cycle to work. Good for them, I guess, but not so great for us cycling to do our errands.
Because commuting by bike is uncommon, many places have no bike parking at all, or one solitary station on a busy corner. We got excited when there was bike parking. For example, in Taupo and Nelson where there’s so much pleasure cycling, it was easy to find bike parking.
This doesn’t mean that people don’t cycle in New Zealand. They do! We saw cyclists all over the country: on busy roads, in parks, and on trails. Bike-packing is encouraged, and there is a lot of infrastructure for leisure cyclists.
Leisure Cycling in New Zealand
Kiwis cycle for pleasure. Most places we’ve been, there are scenic dedicated bike trails. Bike trails along lakes or multi-use paths through forests are common from Whangarei in the north to Te Anau in the deep South of New Zealand. We tried as many as we were able and really enjoyed cycling in New Zealand.
Bike trails in New Zealand don’t always lead anywhere. A bike path in New Zealand can go 10k into a forest and then stop, leaving riders no option but to turn around and go back. It’s hard to complain when the views are so stunning.
One of the positives of this country’s cooler climate is it’s great for cycling. The wind, however, is another story.
Biking to Wineries
Winery bike tours are common in New Zealand, often with e-bikes. We didn’t have to pay for a tour, we just grabbed a map and went cycling. Some regions were better for biking to wineries than others, though.
We cycled through Hawkes Bay and sampled wines along the way, and the wineries welcomed us with open arms and bottles! Another great wine region is Marlborough, where the wineries cater to cyclists, although many of the “bike paths” were just the road. We loved Marlborough, but did get caught up in a strong headwind on our way back to the van. It was a workout!
Maybe our favorite wine region for cycling wineries is Gibbston, part of the Central Otago wine region and just outside of Queenstown. The dedicated bike lanes are safe and offer beautiful views of the river and easy access to wineries and restaurants.
Mountain Bike Parks
Mountain biking is booming in New Zealand. Many towns have their own dedicated mountain bike parks, with trails from moderate to expert on the sides of big hills. We visited a few of them, some for the better part of a day, navigating narrow winding trails among beautiful scenery. Here are some of our favorite New Zealand mountain bike parks.
whangarei
Our first experience at a New Zealand mountain bike park was slightly scary for me. Not only was it a climb just to get there (you can avoid that by driving), most of the trails were above my expertise level. Or maybe I was just nervous since it was our first visit to a mountain bike park in years. I survived to enjoy cycling in more New Zealand mountain bike parks!
taupo
Taupo is a small town on a lake of the same name, in the North Island just south of Rotorua. Equipped with a beautiful waterfall, riverside freedom camping, and lakefront dining and activities, it’s also got extensive cycling trails. This includes a huge mountain bike park near the waterfall on the outside of town.
We parked Vincent the van at camp and cycled to Craters Mountain Bike park. You have to download an app and pay a small membership fee to use the trails, and off you go! As with many of the parks, we got passed by small children regularly but had fun cycling the trails.
Rotorua
The mountain bike park in the redwood forest was another favorite, and one of our Rotorua highlights. Totally free to use, it’s easily accessible from town. In fact, we left our campervan parked and biked directly there on a nice protected trail. The park trails were well laid out and it was almost peaceful to cycle through the redwoods, except when it was winding, bumpy, and hilly. Then it was exciting!
Kaiteriteri
This beachfront town on the north coast of the south island had a mountain bike park right next to our campground. We spent our last morning cycling the hilly trails before getting in the van and heading off again.
Long Distance Bike Trails
Great Rides are a recent development in New Zealand, an adjunct to the widely popular Great Walks. Tourism boards realize what’s hot, especially with the boom of e-bikes, and have added some multi-day bike rides to the wealth of tourism activities.
Many New Zealand bike trails are gravel, so having mountain bike or thicker tires is preferable. Sometimes it gets slippy, but paths are generally pretty good, and preferable to competing with car traffic on a motorway. Cycling in nature with no one else around is a good way to spend time.
The Great Rides are new and a work in progress. In fact, many of the routes are incomplete. For example, The Alps 2 Ocean trail in the South Island requires a helicopter ride across the Tasman River. Unless you’re a completist, I think you’ll skip that $960 flight!
Before we got to Bay of Islands, we hoped to do the Twin Coast Cycle Trail, except to complete it you need to take a vintage train for a few kilometers. I don’t know what role the helicopter and train companies play in developing the Great Rides, but they’re definitely making a profit off them, or trying to.
While we didn’t complete an entire Great Ride, we contented ourselves with cycling parts of several. This includes Great Rides in Tasman, Kingston, Bay of Islands, and Rotorua, all on well-used and protected trails.
Whakarewarewa Forest Loop, Rotorua
This lovely bike path is almost like taking a Rotorua highlights tour via bicycle, with redwood forest and thermal hot springs views, and it takes you right into the mountain bike park.
Mount cook
Since we arrived in Mount Cook in the afternoon, we planned our hikes for the next day. Instead, we cycled some of the Alps 2 Ocean Great ride, did some geocaching, and enjoyed the scenery. This Great ride is a long one, over 300KM; we only did a small piece.
A lot of the bike trails are filled with geocaches, which made it more fun and gave us opportunities to take breaks on longer rides. We found some cool geocaches while cycling around New Zealand.
Queenstown
We didn’t venture up the mountain in Queenstown as everyone we saw cycling down it had on pads and heavy duty gear. Instead, we chose to cycle several of the trails in this region, mostly off-road with beautiful views of the local scenery.
Multiple long-distance cycling tracks wend their way through Queenstown, including the Around the Mountains trail, part of which we cycled while in Kingston. We especially liked the part of the Queenstown Trail that leads to the wineries in Gibbston, with beautiful riverfront views.
Mountains to Sea Ngā Ara Tūhono, Ohakune
We did the beginning (or end) section of the Mountains to Sea three day ride when we stayed in Ohakune. We took the trail called Old Coach Road, which had panels detailing its interesting history as a carriage route in the 18th century. Part of the trail involved beautiful natural scenery, a cycle over a scary suspension bridge (that was optional, but we did it), and forests.
The ride from Horopito to Ohakune was only about 12km, but it had enough twists and turns and rocks to be interesting. Plus, we cycled that after another ride that morning!
Earlier that day, we rode a bus 1700 meters up Mount Ruapehu and had a semi-controlled cycle down. While we could have done the 17km downhill in 30 minutes, we preferred to stop a few times for the sites along the way. Sites including short hikes to some Lord of the Rings waterfalls. Plus, it was good to take a break from squeezing our brakes, but this was a fun ride!
Cycling in New zealand conclusion
It’s been a while since we’ve done a multi-day cycling trip, but we took advantage of opportunities for cycling in New Zealand. It was a great adventure with a lot of cycling.
I highly recommend any of these rides and would love to get back and hit more trails!
Where is your favorite biking trail in New Zealand or anywhere? Share in the comments.
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Oh, we missed the biking in NZ! Yes, we did a lot of hiking and saw a lot of bikers. Since we had no space for bikes on our car, we had to rely on 4 wheel or our 2 legs. I fully agree with your conclusions: cycling in NZ adds to the fun and adventures you can experience in NZ. Well done report!!
I didn’t realize New Zealand was building these Great Rides trails. Funny that you have to take a helicopter to complete one. Hoping that they complete the trails–I’d love to ride these.
It’s a great new initiative, Sonia. And there are a lot of trails to choose from. I imagine cycling here will just get better!