Mountain Biking
If you are into biking, then you have definitely come to the right place. Central Park is an absolute Mecca for mountain and road bikers alike, offering hundreds of kilometers of outstanding mountain bike trails through forests and volcanic terrain, as well as wide open highways to get some road training (or races) under your belt.
Mountain biking in Central Park gets you up close and personal with some of the most spectacular scenery you will find anywhere in the world – and most of it is only accessible on two wheels.
Rotorua has hundreds of pristine single tracks through stunning forests and lakes, catering for all skill levels.
For a mountain biking experience with a real difference, take a trip around Craters of the Moon in Taupo – a volcanic area that really lives up to its name, with steaming landscapes and boiling mud pools.
The Whirinaki Forest offers a variety of tracks through untouched native bush, while Ruapehu offers the 42 Traverse and alpine heli-biking. You can also find a myriad of mountain bike trails in the Bay of Plenty, often alongside its stunning coastal scenery. For a biking tour with a real difference, take a wine tour on your bike in the Hawks Bay.
You can hire quality mountain bikes and all the other gear you need in each centre, with a number of groups providing shuttle buses to key trails or tours through the forest. There are also a huge number of mountain bike events and races.
If thinner wheels are your thing, Central Park offers wide open highways and cycle-friendly towns and cities. The different regions in Central Park are also close enough to move between them under your own cycle power.
If you want to take the challenge up a notch or two, Central Park also offers some of the best road cycling events in the Southern Hemisphere. The Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge is now of New Zealand’s most popular sporting events, for more info on the Taupo Cycle Challenge. For all events take a look at the Events tab on this site.
