NZ Mountain Bike Trail Design & Construction Guidelines
Mountain Biking has quickly become a mainstream sport, with a broad range of bike trails being developed all around New Zealand.
Projects are now being driven by landmanagers such as DOC, Iwi, local and regional councils and also private landowners, adding a more structured and professional approach to complement the well established volunteer based, club driven structure.
Often the project manager or engineer managing the project has no background in the sport, and the volunteer driver maybe light on the steps needed to produce a fit for purpose product.
This new guideline is intended to help all parties develop and clarify their understanding of the creative elements that go in to delivering a fun trail experience at each of the six different grades of difficulty.
This guideline gives a detailed and defined specification for new trails at each grade, and also provides a template for the maintenance and auditing of existing trails. Any organisation involved with developing, building, maintaining or auditing a trail is encouraged to use these guidelines - with the overriding goal for NZ being a level of consistency and continuity around trail grading to ensure a fantastic user experience.
Insights
Asian migrants enjoy day walks and want outdoor recreation activities with family and friends. Maori are more likely to go hunting or fishing in the outdoors than all other groups. NZ Pacific Islanders find cost is a barrier.
As Dr Michelle Schaaf said in Wilderness Magazine, "Going mountaineering by yourself may be seen by others as individualistic and selfish - what purpose does it serve?"
Our Insights include information about the participation patterns, motivations and barriers of diverse groups, and some easy to apply tactics to increase engagement of different ethnicities in outdoor recreation. Read the first in our Insights series, and to find out more including links to research, podcasts and webinars.
Read INSIGHTS: Outdoor recreation in a superdiverse NZ now
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Good Practice Guides
- Overnight Camping
- Floating (flat/slow water rafting, paddling, canoeing etc)
- River activities (swimming, rope swings, diving etc)
- Low ropes/confidence courses (<3m)
- Adventure Based Learning including night games and wide games
- Land Travel (tramping, daywalking, orienteering/rogaining/adventure racing)
- Trail biking (particularly MTB)