NZ Mountain Bike Trail Design and 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 land managers 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.