Auckland MTB Club

11th March – Riverhead

A popular destination when Woodhill dries out and the sand gets too much, Riverhead Forest’s clay-based soil makes it ideal for summer riding. The forest is huge so the riding varies from finely groomed singletrack, to rutted Moto-X trails to forestry road slogs and can be intimidating to the uninitiated.

Meet at the Barlow Road entrance at 8:45am, next to the Moto-X club.

Ride leader: Edd Ballinger

26th February – Exhibition Drive & Beveridge Track, Titirangi

The brand-new Beveridge Track is a walking and cycling track that climbs from the western end of Exhibition Drive in Titirangi, through the stunning native bush of the Waitakere Ranges up to the Arataki Visitors Centre on Scenic Drive. We’ll stop there for an ice-cream before returning the way we came.

The track is wide and gravelled, has a gentle gradient for the most part (there is a steep-ish, switchbacked 200m climb up onto the ridgeline) and offers beautiful views across both the Waitamata and Manukau harbours.

Kids are welcome on this ride as long as they have reasonable bike handling skills – we don’t want anyone disappearing off the side of the track into the bush! Hopefully the promise of ice-cream will be enough to encourage them up the climb.  Expect a total distance of around 12km

Meeting at 8:45 at the car park at the junction of Scenic Drive and Woodland Park Road, riding at 9am

Ride leader: Edd Ballinger

Edd is leading a ride out at Hunua this Sun. Meeting at the Mangatawhiri carpark at 8:45, riding at 9:00am.

Challenging singletrack in gorgeous native bush, Hunua is always worth the drive. Even more so at this time of year when the tracks are fast and flowing. Expect a lap of the River Trail singletrack network and for those who are keen, either a ride up to the old National Downhill course, or round the Challenge Track.

There is a working bee (come along if you can lend a hand) on the Sun so trails should be in tip-top condition.

Yep that’s right there is a Trail Day at Hunua this Saturday.

We are planning on cutting back some of the summer growth, planning out the rest of the year, finishing naming each section of trail, convincing Scotty we need 3 x as much trail as we already have, figuring out how the club can buy a digger, anything else Scotty (the ranger) has in mind.

Details: Meet at the Mangatawhiri car park at 8.30am if you want to go for the warm-up ride, or at 10.00am to rip straight into the digging. The club will look after you with a high energy lunch and our mates at the ranger station usually shout a BBQ afterwards – this is if you let us know you are coming! Please RSVP  email Kris Bartley or texting him on 0274 955 966

What you’ll need;

Bike, helmet riding gear, change of clothes etc, Auckland Council supply all of the tools.

Here’s a link to some of the action we get up to http://www.cyclewaynewzealand.co.nz/trails.php?ln=001000013920902121505000334

Hi folks,

So I’ve been a little slow getting this sorted but it is now done! 2012 memberships are now available online here.

Thanks
Marke

Last Sunday a few of us headed out to Paremoremo for the grand opening of Sanders Reserve. The Reserve was designed to be a multi-use recreational area that caters for horse riders, dog walkers and of course, us mountain bikers. It has about 20km of trails, the horse riding area is separate (although the hoof prints suggest that some unofficial sharing is going on) and a there is a superb building that has hot showers in it…something we found useful today!!

We have to be honest, the verdict on the trails is not overly positive. They are going to need some tweaking and a winter of riding might help but there are some iffy corners and lots of loose metal. If you head out there, especially if you take a significant other to help introduce to trail riding, then don’t go too crazy: the loose surface, fast flat and tight corners and deep metal in places might just grab you and pull you off your bike.

Having said that, the trails are there, they are fun and are great fun on the singlespeed. I have no doubt that they will need some working bee efforts over the winter once we can get in there with a plate compactor and they can only get better.

Here are photos from the opening weekend….

So today we headed out there for the Club Xmas ride and BBQ. The weather was not quite so kind but a merry bunch of 20-odd riders hit the trails and enjoyed some warm food and typical banter afterwards. Thanks to Edd for organising the ride and all his efforts this year with the fortnightly rides. Catch ya.