Our community project

How we got involved.

I brought my first Mountain Bike about 30 years ago for family outings. I was still pig farming then and I found the bike to be incredibly useful on the farm when shifting sows.

My son Daniel and I started mountain biking in 2012 preparing for the Mt Cook to Omarama section when the Alps to Ocean first opened. We rode with a group of fellow Waimate Rotarians for 3 days. Daniel and I trained well, and found biking 80km on day 1 relatively easy.

Then we sort of just kept on biking.

Waimate had a MTB track going up to the Whitehorse through a Pine Tree Forest, which to be honest we didn’t frequent much, however this trail was ruined after the September 2013 wind.

Early in 2014 my local electrician and MTB enthusiast Dave Hanson asked me to give him a hand to rebuild this trail and look at creating new MTB trails - which sort of set off a chain of events.

Whitehorse MTB Riders Inc.

To receive funding we needed to form a new club, so we set up a club called Whitehorse MTB Riders Inc. We have a committee of 5 with Dave as treasurer, my wife Shona - Secretary, Glenda Begg and Daniel are also committee members and I’m the President.

Our Number 1 goal was to create a 7km shared-use trail, to be used by mountain bikers, walkers, runners and the like, from the end of Point Bush Road in Waimate to the Whitehorse. This trail was to have an average gradient of 5%, be 6-7km long and 2-3 m wide and to be called the Whitehorse Big Easy. This trail is aimed more at the beginner/intermediate level of mountain bikers.

As the Whitehorse Big Easy goes mostly through private property owned by Gary Dennison (and Vines Restaurant owner) we needed to have a legal Access Agreement to ensure that the trail will remain available and free to use for everyone.

Thankfully the lawyers for the club (Hope & Associates) and Gary’s lawyers (RSM Law) agreed to do this work on a pro bono basis. We also needed funding and thankfully Rotary Club of Waimate has given us $12,500.  Without this funding we would’ve struggled to get real momentum.

Trail building has occurred

Dave, Daniel and I marked out the top 3km of the Whitehorse Big Easy from where the trees had been cleared. Land owner Gary Dennison paid for some digger time to get the project started and Gary Rooney agreed to cut the rest of the top section on a 50/50 basis, which meant he matched us dollar for dollar; this was done in August 2014.

Since then we have also rebuilt some singletrack (named DDT) for mountain biking with some support from Leathwick Contracting. I’ve also used the tractor for some sections and more recently Fulton Hogan gave us free use of a 5 tonne digger for 3 days.

Daniel at age 16 under instruction and guidance from his Grandfather Colin Welsh, learnt how to operate an excavator.

Early in 2015 another section of the forest was felled and Gary allowed some of the skidder tracks to remain for our use (now called the Rosewood Loop). Laurie Forestry kindly paid for a digger to make them useable. We also had culvert pipes donated by Ipex Industries. Currently we are marking out the bush section of the Whitehorse Big Easy.

By June 2015 we had established about 6km of usable mountain bike trails and seeing mountain bikers, both local and visitors to Waimate, riding them as well as being used by the local harriers club.

In 2017 we brought 50 hectares of land that boundaries onto this same area and brought our own 5 tonne digger which Daniel has used for public trail building as well as our own private trails. More recently we brought a 1.7 tonne digger and Daniel continues to build MTB trails as time allows.

This is an incredible project and its not very often that you get the opportunity to be so involved in a community project that has such huge potential.

We get out on our bikes as often as we can. 2019 highlights included riding the Heaphy track, Mt Hutt, Christchurch Adventure Park and the Wharfedale near Oxford. 2020 bigger rides included Motatapu, Glendhu MTB Park and Coppermine Trail in Nelson.

Thanks
Ken