New Mountain Bike Trail Guidelines for New Zealand

New Mountain Bike Trail Guidelines for New Zealand

Recreation Aotearoa has released new mountain bike trail design guidelines. The updated guidelines were developed in partnership with Department of Conservation (DOC), Nga Haerenga New Zealand Cycle Trails, ACC, Sport NZ and the wider mountain bike community.

The guidelines were created to ensure a more nationally consistent approach to design. The key changes include:

• New guidance on the design, build and maintenance of trails.
• New auditing guidelines. 
• New signage guidance developed with support from the Land Safety Forum New Zealand. 
• Refreshed diagrams and technical drawings. 
• Minor changes to ensure trail criteria are consistent and concise. 
• Updated guidance on inclusive trails, e.g. for adaptive MTB riders.
  
  

These changes better reflect how trails are currently being built and used and help ensure a more consistent and safer experience for all riders.

Riders will slowly start to see trails around New Zealand implement the new guidelines. At CAP we have adopted the new guidelines and all new builds will meet these guidelines. As we transition trails across into the new guidelines we will continue to run with our existing trail grading signage (green, blue, black etc) but will also show what the grading will be under the new guidelines e.g Grade 3, 4, 5. This will enable riders to understand the grading system before we do a park wide re-signage programme.

 The table below shows the relationship between the current CAP grading system and the new grading system.