Newsletter for December 2025 - Beech to Beach

The KMBP email newsletter for December 2025 has just been sent. We call it “Beech to Beach” and it’s a great way of keeping abreast of news and events in the Mountain Bike Park.

Subscribe below to ensure you get the next one (we send it 4 times a year).

Peruse the latest edition here.

Trail update - September 2025

Over the last two months, our volunteers have been turning up week after week for I Dig Sunday working bees, and the results are showing. The park is looking great, and huge progress has been made on the trails most affected by storm damage. A massive thank you to everyone who has picked up a shovel, swung a grubber, or spent time on the end of a McLeod – your efforts are what keep this park alive.

Keen volunteers at work on Karmakaze and one of it’s many slips

Trails Still Closed (but not for long)

At the moment, three trails remain officially closed: Jaws, Skulduggery, and Swamp Monster. All three are very close to reopening thanks to the dedication of our crew and volunteers, and we’re optimistic they’ll be rideable again within days rather than weeks.

• Jaws

  Free Range has been hard at work with the digger and is now down on the lower sections, tackling a debris dam. The trail is shaping up nicely, though there will be some soft spots at first. We want to give it a bit of time to firm up before dropping the tape – but as one of the park’s most popular trails, we’re just as keen as you are to get it open again.
  
  Having said Jaws is closed... if you're a confident rider on Grade 4 / Advanced trails you can currently ride the top section of Jaws and then drop into Velocity but bear in mind Velocity is a Grade 5 trail and quite a step up from what you'd expect on Jaws. 

• Skulduggery

  This one is a real success story of community muscle. A massive volunteer effort – with a special shout-out to the indefatigable Michael Brewer – has cleared the trail end to end. The only hold-up now is a missing bridge. At present you could ride it if you don’t mind carrying your bike across a creek, but we’ll keep the entrance taped to avoid catching anyone unprepared. The bridge timber is already stacked at the entrance, and now we’re on the hunt for strong backs and a bit of engineering flair to carry 6-metre spars deep along a very bendy trail. Contortionists welcome!

• Swamp Monster

  Living up to its name, this trail is still boggy in sections. Sam’s been in there with the digger and reckons it’s like “working with porridge.” We need a run of dry weather to make progress before reopening – so for now, Swamp Monster is staying true to character.

• Crackin Thru the Bracken, Cheeky Weka and Dark Weka are all closed but these trails are closed anyway through winter and wetter months so it's just business as usual here.

Looking Ahead

With the momentum from our recent working bees and the digger hours going in, it won’t be long before all three of these trails are fully back in action. In the meantime, there are plenty of open tracks to keep you riding, so come and enjoy the park – and if you’d like to lend a hand on the next I Dig Sunday, we’d love to see you there.

Keep an eye on our socials - Facebook and Instagram for announcements and trail updates.

Park closed until further notice - Post rain event, July 2025

Kia ora riders and friends, please see the below update regarding the Mountain Bike Park.

The park has been hit hard. We're still completing a thorough assessment of the damage but suffice to say there are very few trails that have not been affected. Bridges have been washed away, trees are down over tracks and slips have taken sections of tracks out or covered them. We have a major clean up project ahead of us.

For now, the park is closed but we hope to re-open it when possible with access to some of the tracks.

While we assess the damage, we're putting the "I Dig Sundays" working bees on hold. These will resume as soon as possible but we need to first establish where we can safely deploy keen volunteers. We'll provide updates on Facebook and Instagram and our website as soon as we can but no working bee this Sunday.

The Fire Pit Thursday event for tonight is cancelled and we'll be making an announcement about next week's event in the next few days. We do hope to be able to continue these on tracks that are available. Again, we'll provide updates via Facebook, Instagram and our website.

Thanks for your understanding, and we hope to all be riding soon when its safe to do so! From the KMBP committee.

Kaiteriteri Mountain Bike Park Newsletter June 2025

The Newsletter of the Kaiteriteri Mountain Bike Park June 2025

Beech to Beach

Founded in 2007 the Kaiteriteri Mountain Bike Park (KMBP) now has over 40 trails with over 70km of riding and walking spread across 170 hectares of bushland. Overlooking the beautiful Kaiteriteri beach KMBP aims to provide a range of riding experiences, with an emphasis on family friendly riding, while improving the biodiversity of the park. Go to bikekaiteriteri.co.nz

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Winter riding. Squeezing a quick ride in after work with the bike lights ready for when the sun goes down. Cool calm evenings. Beautiful light. Flowing tracks or gnarly descents.

To keep this gem of ours fully operational we depend heavily on  volunteers. The help that we need is varied and sporadic or regular. Track work occurs most Sundays over winter. Racing events when they occur require all hands-on deck! The conservation work being done in the park involves 2 weekly trap checking or pine tree control whenever you have the time.

If you use the park or just want to be involved, give us a call or send an email to bike@krr.co.nz.

Michael Brewer, Editor

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The KMBP Committee … One at a time!

Greg Southcombe – Chairman of the Mountain Bike Committee. Greg moved to this area three  years ago and quickly became involved with the mountain bike park. He enjoys cruising the tracks in the park and has also become involved in the trapping and pine tree control programmes. Away from the park he works in the digital marketing world. He’s also not bad at taking selfies! He made the mistake of becoming an enthusiastic, energetic and helpful committee member resulting in him being elected Chairman when the post became available last year.

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Trail Gossip

Taniwha Handlebar is being given a tidy up hopefully to make it appeal more to the less confident intermediate riders.

The lower Velocity revamp has started helped by an amazing effort over 3 days put in by students from the NMIT ranger’s course with help and guidance given by committee members.

Jaws has almost finished having its remake. Sam Knowles has been smoothing and revamping it so get in there and enjoy it before the winter rain starts undoing some of his great work.

Huff and Revelation are soon to have a tidy up to get rid of some rough patches.

Upper Velocity is going to have major reshaping and rerouting work started on it probably in August. This is going to be a big job taking several months so bear with us as the track will remain closed through out.

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Sponsors’ Corner

Gary Donaldson is a keen rider of the park who is part owner of Donaldson Civil. He is a man who knows about diggers (among other things!) and his firm has a long history of giving their time and equipment free of cost to the park to help build tracks.

He has recently offered to generously give his own time and a digger to tidy up huff and revelation tracks. We are always on the lookout for new sponsors so give us a call if interested or hit reply to this email.

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Conservation News

A grant of almost $15000 has been recently received from the Air New Zealand Every Corner Project. This is an exciting and somewhat humbling achievement as there were over 640 applications from around the country for around 100 grants. We feel it recognises the excellent conservation work we are doing and the commitment we have made to taking it further. A great thanks to all the volunteers that have helped us achieve this. The funding is to go towards replacing ageing traps and the purchase of more automatic traps to further  target rats, mustelids and opossums.

Thanks to the Whenua Iti Outdoors students who spent a wet morning with Greg Southcombe and Ross Maley helping to get rid of unwanted wattle trees and pines around the skills area.

Pine tree control is ongoing with the focus now on the Corkscrew area. Over the last 3 1/2 years over 32000 pines have been killed. A Youtube video made by our local filmmaker Richard Sidey is  available here detailing the amazing exploits of the hardworking team behind this achievement.

A new trapline has been put in on lower Badjelly as this is where Tomtits/Miromiro have been sighted. Since the initial sighting there have been several additional sightings on Piki ke te ra climbing trail and on lower Velocity. A South Island Robin/toutouwai has also been seen. These sightings are exciting as they may indicate that our predator control efforts are allowing these birds to return to the park.

Trapping over the last 3 months has removed 97 rats, 37 opossums, 11 mice and 2 stoats. A ferret has also been caught for the first time.

Seedling rescue has been happening from the sides of tracks which seem to encourage Rimu, Kahikatea and Tōtara seedlings to sprout presumably due to the extra light and loosened soil. Some are just dug up and translocated to a nearby safe site while others are being nursed for a couple of years off site with a view towards replanting. 50 Rimu seedlings were recently found.

Karmakaze Enduro 2025: Blue Skies, Brown Pow, and Big Smiles

Sunday 8th June 2025 delivered a perfect winter’s day for the annual Karmakaze Enduro, held right here at Kaiteriteri Mountain Bike Park. Riders were greeted with clear blue skies, crisp air, and trails in top condition—no snow, but plenty of legendary brown pow!

This is how you roll down The Rockface!

This year’s event saw riders of all ages take on a mix of fast flow, technical drops, and trail favourites across five classic stages. Junior riders (under 15) tackled four of these, finishing on a high with the crowd-pleasing Tapu descent.

Whether gunning for the podium or just out for a good time, the vibe was all about fun, challenge, and community. Thanks to everyone who turned out and made the day such a success.

Huge Thanks To…

Our incredible volunteers—especially the marshals and safety crew who stood out in the cold to keep everyone safe.

Our generous event sponsors:

• Kaiteriteri Recreation Reserve

• Coppins / Specialized – MTB gear

• New World – Energy station

• Mitre 10 – Dig day essentials

• Whitwells – Bags & gear

• Kahu Kayaks – Swag

• Fonterra Primo – Post-ride recovery

• Hop Federation – Beer & swag

• Design by George – Event merch

Special thanks too to our medics Brendan and Barney and Carl Merriman from NMBC who did a great job with the timing.

Every dollar raised goes straight back into developing and maintaining the park.

2025 Photo Gallery

We’ve pulled together a gallery of images that capture the spirit of the day—check it out here:

👉 View the Karmakaze 2025 Photo Album for all the images (may include images of the photographer’s feet!)

But here’s a few of the Juniors in action

🏁 Official Race Results

We had a solid turnout across all categories, from Open to E-Bike to Junior Enduro. Here's the full breakdown of times and placings:

👉 Click here to view the full results.

Keep an eye on our Events for the 2026 date and until then - we’ll see you on the trails!

The Newsletter of the Kaiteriteri Mountain Bike Park March 2025

Beech to Beach
The Newsletter of the Kaiteriteri Mountain Bike Park – March 2025

Founded in 2007, the Kaiteriteri Mountain Bike Park (KMBP) now features over 40 trails, offering more than 70 km of riding and walking tracks across 170 hectares of bushland. Overlooking the beautiful Kaiteriteri Beach, KMBP aims to provide a range of riding experiences, with an emphasis on family-friendly trails while also improving the park's biodiversity. Visit bikekaiteriteri.co.nz for more details.

Inaugural Newsletter

This is the inaugural newsletter of the KMBP. Readers will find out about park development plans, stay up to date with conservation efforts, and be introduced to some of the members of the mountain bike committee. You will also meet some of our sponsors, who help keep our park viable, catch up on the latest riding gossip, and stay informed about upcoming events.

Michael Brewer, Editor

The KMBP Committee – One at a Time!

Ross Maley – Park Manager
Ross Maley - Park Manager. Ross has been a committee member almost since the park’s inception and became the park manager about nine years ago. A keen biker, he also brings many years of outdoor experience from working with the Department of Conservation. He is responsible for maintaining the tracks, liaising with outside groups, setting wasp bait, planting native seedlings, helping to organize events, directing walkers and bikers to the appropriate trails, and much more.

Trail Gossip

If you haven’t been in the park for a while, here’s what you’ve missed:

• Rockface – The upper section has been realigned and is now mostly off the original firebreak.

• Trapdoor – The top section has been upgraded with multiple bermed corners for better riding flow.

• Jaws & Velocity – Sam Knowles, committee member and digger operator, will complete grooming on Jaws before moving on to a major revamp of Velocity. The goal is to transform it from a firebreak dive into a flowing, fun run graded as an Advanced ride.

• Skullduggery – Large rimu roots crossing the track have been covered with soil for protection, and some narrow sections have been widened to create a more consistent riding experience.

Sponsors’ Corner

A big thank you to Leeon Johnston of Harcourts Real Estate Motueka for sponsoring Easy Rider for several years. Leeon and his family are regular riders in the park. We are always on the lookout for new sponsors—get in touch if you’re interested!

Conservation News

• Pine Tree Control – Ongoing efforts have resulted in over 30,000 trees being poisoned.

• Native Planting – Last year, 100 beech tree seedlings were successfully planted along Tank. Multiple podocarp seedlings growing too close to tracks have also been transplanted.

• Pest Control – Stoat and rat traps are deployed throughout the park, with eight automated opossum/rat traps recently added. Tracking tunnel lines have been installed to measure the effectiveness of our trapping program.

• Wildlife Sightings – Two tomtits were recently spotted in the park, a significant find as they are uncommon in this area due to rat predation. Bird sound recorders will soon be placed in the park to monitor and hopefully identify more bird species.

Upcoming Events

• NZ MTB Rally – Tuesday, 25th March, coming through the park.
  nzmtbrally.com

• Working Bees – Start the first Sunday in May. A secret project will be announced soon!

• The Gravel Enduro – Saturday, 17th May.
  crazykeaevents.nz/gravelduro – Sign up if interested!

• Karmakaze Enduro – Sunday, 18th May. Our own event! Details will be available at
  bikekaiteriteri.co.nz/events

• Fire Pit Night Riding Series – June

Happy Biking to You All!

The Pikikirunga Trail

Our neighbours from ‘over the Hill’ have been working hard on an exciting project, The Pikikirunga Trail, and Ross Maley (KMBP Manager) was given a guided tour today of this soon-to-be-completed trail and the impressive progress that’s being achieved.

The Golden Bay Mountain Bike Club broke ground in early 2023 on this trail and is now about 600m away from the end of the first stage - a grade 3 descent from the Takaka Hill saddle to Horseshoe Bend.

Project Manager Bruce Chick very kindly led us down the completed section, with brief stops to take in the superb views before we rolled into native bush sections carved out of what was a rock-strewn slope. Stop for a minute in these spots, and the abundant birdlife becomes quickly obvious—not just the birdsong, but the Robin (Toutouwai) will come right down to you for a close-up visit.

The ride itself is a total blast and, as a Grade 3, will bring a huge smile to the faces of riders at all levels.

Our hats are off to Bruce, KP, Fraser and all the volunteers who have created something very special not just for Golden Bay but the wider area.

Thanks to Bruce for the tour - we’ll be back (often!).