In about a week my partner and I plan to start bikepacking the following route on the south island of New Zealand: Ride with GPS | Bike Route Planner and Cycling Navigation App We are super excited because we are going to be able to ride The Old Ghost Road, Heaphy Track, Rainbow Road and St James Cyclepath amongst some other cools spots. Unfortunately there are some sections of road in the route which is a necessary evil to connect things up.
What I am looking for some info on is if anyone has words of advice on making the road sections safer or just info to help us minimize risk. New Zealand roads sound like they can be narrow and busy in places and I canāt really find info on which sections we may want to try to ride at lower traffic times or take other precautions. We plan to have a Varia radar and do what we can to make ourselves visible along with the other standard practices for safe road riding.
The sections I am wondering about are:
Hwy 6/Lower and Upper Buller Gourge Rd from Westport to the Lyell camground
Karamea Hwy/67 from the Seddonville area to the Heaphy Track
Hwy 60 from Parapara to TÄkaka
Hwy 60 from Takaka Hill/Canaan Rd to Riwaka
Any words of wisdom on sections that may be particularly busy or otherwise worrisome?
Hopefully thereās a Kiwi in here, Iām an Aussie - Iāve ridden in NZ. I donāt know those particular roads but NZ main roads often have no shoulder. They are often the only road option so they are busy with high speed motor vehicle traffic. The Google Street View shot of Hwy 60 shows how narrow the roads are. They do get bikepackers so they would be used to them - I didnāt find NZ drivers particularly good or bad, but the main roads are definitely not ideal. Once youāre off the main roads itās great.
Kiwi here, have ridden above roads. The Buller gorge is the busiest of the sections you have mentioned. Trucks and buses run on any day of the week. The section from seddonville to karamea is twisty and reasonable quiet, karamea to the Heaphy is very quiet (sneaky hard section in terms of climbing between the Old Ghost and Heaphy, felt harder than it look on the map). The first section in Takaka isnāt too bad, the Takaka Hill section down to Riwaka is a great descent with reasonable amounts of traffic but acceptable shoulders. All roads listed will be single lane each way. The Buller Gorge section especially does see big trucks and campers. As with all NZ roads there are some areas with nice shoulders and other less nice bits. In my opinion all of those sections are reasonable to ride. I personally use lights during the day for visibility. If it was really wet Iād maybe avoid the Buller gorge but the other sections would be ok (it would be pretty average in the rain anyway).
Me and my wife have ridden on roads only all over the South Island and not once did we feel threatened by traffic. Of course it depends on what you are used to but we found the Kiwis to be respectful and the roads (even the main ones) way, way less busier than what we usually ride in Australia. We always use rear lights any time of the day but thatās about the only thing we do to be visible and a thing I do anyway regardless of where and when I am riding. Youāll have a blast! PS Pack warmer clothes than you think youāll need! We travelled at the same time of the year and it got to freezing temperatures way more often than we had planned.
Thank you to all responders! You are echoing a lot of what I anticipated but wasnāt sure about. Definitely will be using the daylight blinking lights.
Interesting topic. Iām thinking of going to a mountain bike race there in March and perhaps riding some trails before hand like the Old Ghost Trail (debating whether I should try this in one day or stay in a hut). Are there other epic mountain bike rides to do while I am there?
also, does it make sense to rent an xc or light trail full suspension bike there? I assume there are high end brands available? Or buy a case and fly with mine?
I obviously have only researched this and havenāt been yet but it seems like there are LOTS of great MTB options in NZ. If you are going for backcountry/bikepacking options also check out the Paparoa and Pike29 Memorial Tracks. Those were on our route until we needed to scale back a bit. Looks amazing!
From what I have read, Old Ghost is doable as a one day ride but it is a monster of a ride. Additionally, fitting it into one day logistically is easier but if you can spend at least one night on the route it sounds like the experience is well worth it.
The Nelson area has so many good MTB options it made my head spin. We are definitely not capitalizing on the options in that region as much as we would like. It is a great reason to come back in the future!
We were looking for a point to point route that would link up as much trail as possible and allow us to experience both the west coast region and the interior. We have experience doing big singletrack heavy bikepacking routes (like the Colorado Trail, Arizona Trail, Oregon Timber Trailā¦) in the US and were looking for something similar. Because of that we riffed off of the Kahurangi 500 route. Originally we planned to start in Greymouth and ride the Paparoa also but trimmed that off to avoid being too ambitious with the time and fitness we have. It would have been sweet to do all three of the Great Tracks that are bikeable in one trip but it wasnāt to be. We then linked up a portion of the Great Taste Trail, Rainbow Road and St James Cyclepath for the interior portion of our route. None of those are great MTB routes but look to travel through some really pretty and remote areas. We are flying into Christchurch and using the East West Coaches to get to Charleston and then using the Hanmer Connection shuttle to get back to Christchurch at the end. We are flying with our bikes and gear.
Iām nit going to bike pack as Iāve never done that just fine great trails to ride and places to stay if I need to. The logistics of multi day rides though is concerning me as Iām nit packing. Maybe just a change of socks and underwear and a tooth brush?
I recently did an event called the Big Finishline Party. The only rule is, be at the pub at 5:30 on saturday, at Reefton. I am 64, but a very experienced bikepacker. This is the loop we did. The Old Ghost road is doable in a day. But Iād advise most people to stay in one of the huts and enjoy it more. I am happy to share thoughts on any of this stuff. We definitely took flashing lights and I hang a fluoro strip off my backpack.
I have a ridewithGPS file which is not quite correct. We stayed in Mokihinui, Punakaiki, Ikamatua and Reefton, in accommodation!
We rode a lot on the South Island a year ago. On regular touring bikes with a kid trailer. I bought a Garmin Radar just before we left and that was by far the best thing we bought for that holiday. As others mentioned most paved roads donāt have shoulders so itās really comfortable to see whatās coming from behind.
On all the major roads we wore high-visibility vests. So we never had any problems with cars, they were quite polite also on the big highways.
We only encountered one dangerous road but I think that was due to the holiday that started around Christmas. Youāll be fine.
For the route we just connected all the trails from the āClassic new zealand cycling trailsā from the Kenneth brothers
We also did a 10 week riding holiday in the South Island earlier this year. We planned the route mostly using rides set out in the Kennett Brothers book Classic New Zealand Cycle Trails (Hard copy) and I also looked through their Bikepacking Aotearoa (PDF version). We didnāt camp - used a mixture of pubs, motels, BnBs, caravan parks, and the Ohau Lodge.
Iāll echo some of the other comments about the roads being narrow, often with little or no shoulder, but in my limited riding on the South Island, the drivers I encountered were fine with bikes. Nonetheless, itās never fun to have lots of motor vehicles pass you at high rates of speed, so try and avoid the busier highways if you can. The other thing Iāll note is to remember traffic is on the left side of the road, so coming from the US (or any other country which drives on the right side), be very mindful of looking both directions, and if you rent a bike, most likely the rear brake will be on the left lever and vice versa.
Overall the trip was awesome! Weather was surprisingly good overall, our route was perfect for what we wanted to do and things went smoothly.
As for the NZ roads, they basically were as expected with little to no shoulder. Vehicles were respectful but in a land of narrow roads, drivers are used to passing fairly closely. Using a Garmin Varia was super nice and I highly recommend using some sort of radar.
Not related to the roads but we were super impressed with how well maintained the Old Ghost and Heaphy Tracks were. Both were stunning and I canāt recommend them enough. The Rainbow Road and Molesworth areas are also stunning.
