Craters Mountain Bike Park OPENS SAT 21ST OCTOBER and we are celebrating!
Craters MTB Park to reopen this Saturday….
After a huge amount of work from many people, we are pleased to advise that Craters Mountain Bike Park will reopen Saturday October 21st, 2023
We want to take this opportunity to thank all Bike Taupō members and the wider community, who supported us throughout the year and continue to do so as rebuild work continues.
We look forward to welcoming you, and new members alike back into the Park!
Bike Taupō Chairperson Pete Masters is extremely pleased to have the organisation’s permit reinstated and the mountain bike park open. Pete notes that there is still a lot of work to be done to get Craters to pre cyclone state and that work is ongoing.
Not all tracks are open, and users should expect further interruptions to the access in some parts of Craters. “It is imperative that all members follow the signage on site. These relate mainly to staying safe. Not all tracks will be accessible, and the rules must be adhered to otherwise we risk losing our permit to operate Craters.” says Pete.
“Our rebuild plan from day one was firstly to open the tracks which were not going to be logged, and then as the forestry logging was completed in each area of the park, rebuild the tracks in that area. Most of the key connection trails have been rebuilt but there is still more work to be done” states Pete emphatically.
To give people an idea of the scale we had to deal with, we think we had roughly 3,700 trees to deal with that lay over the tracks. We had to do 8 months spraying and vegetation control in one month, backpacking about 5,000 litres of spray mix in during that time!
We underestimated the impact of deferred maintenance and the effect that no riders would have on those tracks. The grass grew over the tracks along with the blackberry. The pine trees beside the tracks have had massive branch growth and so they needed pruning as well.
It’s hard to acknowledge everyone that contributed to this mammoth task, but we’d like to start with the Track Crew and all the other volunteers who have not only worked on getting the Park up and running again, but also kept the Huka Trails and Great Lake Trails maintained so that riders could continue having a great experience on these tracks as we continued to rebuild Craters.
Huge thanks to all the people who made donations to the fund, including those who renewed their memberships as a form of donation.
The biggest thanks we feel we need to give is to all the members who stayed away and complied with the rules, it made a massive difference with our ability to be able to work in with the logging crews and we appreciate that at times it was frustrating, and that you wanted to do more but by staying out, you were of considerable help to us.
Track change information:
· There is now a new Tourist Trap, Zip and BBC
· We have started on the section of Outback Hill that got logged so the uphill track joining into Stream fields will be reinstated next.
· Access to Steam fields loop, Contact Tracing will be using a steep road which reminds me of the old ice cream hill, (if you can ride it, you deserve an ice cream)
TRACK CLOSURES: PLEASE DO NOT ENTER
· Resort Tracks
· Outback Hill
· Grinder
· Mr
Mrs (bottom section only)
· Buzzard
· Coles
· Missing Link
· Gabrielle
· Waipuwerawera
Come and chat to us!
There will be an official opening of Craters on Saturday 4th November 10am – 2pm.
Bike Taupō will be at The Hub and we’d love to see you.
We will be there to answer any questions you have, give us your feedback directly and thanks to Top Gear Cycles, there will be sausage sizzle!
We hope to have our Brand-new Trail Series Merchandise available for you to purchase.
Everyone is welcome and it should be a fun day 😊
For more information on using the Park please go to the Bike Taupō website at or email our Bike Taupō Services Manager