Bike trails finally open to the riders

Christening the fresh trail with his bike is Waikaia Trails Trust member Sam Ruddenklau. PHOTO: ELLA SCOTT-FLEMING

After delays due to the weather, trees in the way and a diligent focus on accessibility for all, the Waikaia Forest Trails will finally be open to bike-riders this week.

The trail is having its "soft opening" on Thursday, Waikaia Trails Trust chairwoman Hilary Kelso said.

The track needed the community’s mountain bikes on it to help compact the clay.

The trails will have a more official opening in the spring, but after nearly four years in the pipeline, she said it was time to let the community have a go.

The 8km of forest is the second stage of an ongoing project that began with the child-friendly, bumpy tar-seal "pump track" in the centre of the Waikaia township.

The trails were meant to flow on from the pump track, Mrs Kelso said.

With the idea being part of the family could stay at the pump track while the other half can go to the forest, she said.

The riders just needed to make their way through the shops and across the bridge to the old water tower that marked the beginning of the trail, Mrs Kelso said.

Both spots were built by Christchurch company Graded Earth, but owner Milty Coultas had to stop work in the forest around a year ago when the weather "refused to play ball", Mrs Kelso said.

The trail is also within an active logging site, and she said some trees had not been thinned in time, which again put construction on hold.

The most integral part of the project that she said took the a lot of time and care was making sure that the track was usable by those at a "beginner" level as well as the 29% of Southland that identify with a disability.

She said the trails were wider to accommodate "adaptive riders" or three-wheelers using a wheelchair, and the trail’s berms were also built to their level.

Breathing in the new track is trust chairwoman Hilary Kelso.

"We just saw this as a real point of difference, which is why it has taken longer," she said.

The trust always had the varying ages, skill levels and disabilities of families in mind when planning the project, she said.

After the setbacks, Mrs Kelso said there were moments where the trust got re-excited and the opening of the trail will be one of those moments.

Now the public needed to use the it and give their feedback, she said, which will be used to show potential benefactors for the next stages of the ongoing project.

When

The Ensign

went to preview the track last week, trust member Sam Ruddenklau was on his bike, mapping the trail with the GPS on his Smartwatch.

Mr Ruddenklau previously worked at Wanaka mountain bike park Bike Glendhu, and Mrs Kelso said his knowledge and expertise had been invaluable to the project.

She said it was his idea to have a map at the beginning of the trails with access points highlighted, so riders could accurately and efficiently direct first responders to where they were in the case of an emergency.

The first section of the trail is one-way, so safety was a key concern for the trust, Mrs Kelso said.

Looking to the future, she said they will add on offshoots to the trails with a higher difficulty, and if the more adventurous riders enjoy it, they can loop round to go again and again.

With the pump track to teach riders the basics of the ups and downs, the forest section at a beginner-level and the future tracks potentially harder, it was almost as if the trust was teaching the community step-by-step how to ride, she said.

Mrs Kelso said education and wellness were one of their first tenets.

With the education, passion, integrity and community as the trust’s four key principles, the trails were an impressive result, she said.

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