Riding to the challenge of the Wairoa Gorge
The Wairoa Gorge is a jewel in Nelson’s mountainbiking crown but with a reputation for challenging riding. New manager Greg McIntyre hopes to change that. Stu Hunt reports.
According to Greg McIntyre, the biggest hurdle at the Wairoa Gorge Mountain Bike Park is perception.
McIntyre took up the role of park manager last year and says that when he started, the prevailing belief seemed to be that it was a long way to travel to go mountainbiking, and the terrain was challenging.
‘‘Lots of comments I’ve heard are that if you’re not a rock star don’t bother.’’
McIntyre is determined to change that.
He says the reality is that the Gorge has something to offer everyone – 13 tracks from beginner level to advanced, single-track to cross-country.
‘‘There are 70km of trails that are well-marked and well-groomed in the middle of native forest with a few pesky wilding pines to keep you entertained, just 45 minutes from Nelson.’’
McIntyre says the park is oldschool mountainbiking – singletrack and dug by hand.
‘‘Not necessarily harder but you have to concentrate all the time. If it’s a grade 3 track it’s a grade 3 track all the way.’’
He says there’s a built-up anxiety for first-time riders at the Gorge, no matter who they are.
‘‘It could be excitement but it’s probably more anxiety. Especially if you’re on your own, you’ve got to ride in a group.
‘‘You’re looking at these young guys and they’re all fully geared up and you’re thinking ‘I have to ride behind you. I don’t know who you are’.
‘‘Once you get past the anxiety, which is a big part of what the staff are doing, you can ride a trail and go ‘right, I’m sweet’.’’
McIntyre started his working life as a farmer in Southland before moving to Queenstown with just his Land Rover and a mountainbike.
This was in the early 90s when the mountainbiking was on fully rigid bikes with some gears on Department of Conservation tracks. His brother-in-law was taking tours down Skippers Canyon on fully rigid bikes, and that could be summed up in one word – brutal.
McIntyre rigged his Land Rover so he could fit eight bikes on the roof and started taking groups up to around 1800m. He called his company Fat Tyre Adventures.
Over 10 years mountainbike technology has advanced from bikes with 100mm of suspension and cable brakes that would take five hours to ride a track to the advanced suspension, componentry and geometry of today’s bikes that can travel the same trail in 90 minutes.
‘‘So the product changed,’’ McIntyre says.
‘‘I started heli-biking. In the first year I did five trips. It featured on the Getaway travel show and then I did 35 trips in the first two months. It came at the same time that Australians were looking to New Zealand for adventure. I was doing 200 trips a year.’’
McIntyre says that back then, the sport was a bit cowboy and you just called yourself a guide.
It took a few years before he started realising that his actions as a guide changed the outcome of the day.
McIntyre became involved in creating guiding qualifications along a unit standard framework. He sold his business 21⁄ years
2 ago and in alert level 3 last year moved to Nelson.
The Wairoa Gorge Mountain Bike Park was born around 2008 when the land was purchased to create a private park.
The Dodzy Memorial Enduro was the public’s first taste of the trails and in 2016 the Nelson Mountainbike Club took up a short-term lease. The whole park was eventually gifted to New Zealand through the Department of Conservation and the club secured a 40-year lease.
McIntyre says that in the beginning it was opened up for the odd weekend and was like forbidden fruit, but it’s becoming more and more popular.
He says the Gorge wasn’t created as a business, and he describes the club’s decision to take it on as being like buying a 1930s villa that’s taken a beating with the weather, and it needs a bit of sorting. But the bones are good.
‘‘If you look at it you’d say you can’t build a mountainbike park on that, it’s too steep. But the way it’s been crafted, hats off to the guys who thought they could do that.’’
McIntyre says it has been like an incubator for track builders.
‘‘You talk to most people, and they know someone who worked there and now they’ve got their own little track company. You look at any bike park in New Zealand or someone who is building tracks, and you go back and ask ‘what did you do’? They’ll say they worked at the Gorge.’’
The park now has a former fire truck and a Land Cruiser Troop Carrier as shuttles and there are packages tailored to half or full days.
McIntyre says the focus now is creating education around the staff to understand how the customer feels and meeting their expectations, so they know what they are getting.
He says feedback is good and people enjoy the friendly atmosphere.
‘‘It’s a nice place to visit, it’s a great place to work.
‘‘The perfect day for me is to go out there with a rake and a dog and a saw on your back and walk down a trail for two hours, and you’ve groomed a trail.’’
Future plans include solar power for the buildings in the park and a new automatic booking system.
McIntyre says that when he was a farmer he entered the Young Farmer of the Year competition four years in a row and eventually helped design the course for the nationals.
He says that sort of all-rounder skill-set has been an asset for the job.
‘‘It’s a bit like running the Gorge, you don’t know what you’re going to get.
‘‘You’ve got to do this and you have half an hour to do it.’’