Trail Fund

Words Meagan Robertson
Images Lisa Ng

Talk about the gift that keeps giving! Thanks to Trail Fund’s recent Tools for Trails funding round, 30 Weapons of Mass Creation will help ten clubs continue their hard work creating and maintaining their local masterpieces. Read more on a few clubs and their plans below!

Since it was founded in 2013, Trail Fund NZ has been helping volunteer trail building groups around the country establish themselves and their trail networks by gifting grants, ebarrows and other tools. This Christmas, ten trail building teams up and down the country will have more tools in their sheds to further develop the amazing network of mountain bike trails around New Zealand.

“Tools are truly the gift that keep on giving, so we’re super stoked to support these clubs—large and small—with trail building and maintenance support,” says Trail Fund NZ co-president, John Humphrey. “It’s really about supporting the volunteers out there choosing to spend their time trail building – they are the ones behind the incredible trail network that has been developed in New Zealand, and that so many of us enjoy.”

The Swiss army knife of trail tools To make the application process simple, Trail Fund decided the tool of choice would be the New Zealand-made ‘Weapon of Mass Creation’—touted as the Swiss army knife of hand built trail tools, made by product designer and trail builder, Gareth Hargreaves.

“I’m a big supporter of Trail Fund and was more than happy to offer the tools at a discounted rate to get them into the hands of trail builders around the country,” says Gareth, who is a longtime member of the advisory board.

It turns out the clubs were pretty excited about the idea too, with Trail Fund receiving ten applications for the Weapon of Mass Creation (WMC) tools on offer from a wide variety of groups. Keen to see all the deserving recipients get some tools, Trail Fund decided to go big and grant each trail building group between two and four tools!

Read more about the recipients below….

Mākara Peak Supporters—Wellington

Established by Wellington City Council in 1998, Mākara Peak Mountain Bike Park boasts the largest trail network in the lower North Island and has had an exciting year celebrating the 25th anniversary of the park.

“The Mākara Peak Supporters are super stoked to receive three WMC tools from Trail Fund in their latest tool round,” says Mākara Peak Supporters member, Andrew Cooper. “It caps a great year for the Mākara Peak MTB Park—with 2024 being our 25th anniversary and being announced as the best park in the country for 2024 by Recreation Aotearoa – a fantastic acknowledgement of our collaboration with Wellington City Council.

“The WMC tools have been a mainstay of our trail building and maintenance mahi over many years and some of them are starting to feel their age. With a pipeline of refurbishments and new trail builds coming up at Mākara Peak, it will be fantastic to restock the armoury with these new tools.”

Bike Methven—Canterbury

Based in Methven, and only a 10-minute drive from Mt Hutt, Bike Methven has a mixture of cross-country, enduro and downhill mountain bikers, as well as road cyclists, who are passionate about their riding.

The club’s home base, Mt Hutt Bike Park has more than 40km of XC, downhill and singletrack trails and is looking forward to hosting the 2025 and 2026 South Island Secondary MTB Champs.

“All the tracks we are racing will need some love this season,” says club chair, Stu Marr. “We have a number of young pinners keen to get involved and get their hands dirty doing some of this work, so it’s awesome to be a recipient of four of these tools!”

In addition to prepping all the trails for the champs, Bike Methven’s latest projects are extending the intermediate level tracks around the lower part of the Bike Park and a UCI spec BMX track in Central Methven.

Mountainbike Tauranga—Tauranga

A first time Trail Fund recipient and the host of the 2025 North Island Secondary MTB Champs, Mountainbike Tauranga is thrilled to receive three Weapons of Mass Creation to help make its current major projects at Oropi Grove a reality.

A mountain biker’s playground, Oropi Grove is Tauranga’s longest serving mountain bike park. Located on Tauranga City Council land, it includes cross-country, downhill and freeride terrain featuring a variety of purpose-built jumps and drops and ranging from Grade 2 to Grade 6. The projects currently underway include a skills development park and a Grade 4 downhill track.

“The skills area will be a focal point of the park—an area where riders of all abilities can practice their skills, and organised mountain bike lessons can take place,” says Mountainbike Tauranga committee member, Shannon Fisken.

“The new Grade 4 downhill track is a requirement for hosting all three disciplines (XC, Enduro and DH) at the 2025 North Island Secondary MTB Champs. It’s already been professionally designed and our team of volunteers will assist our professional trail builder to ensure the project is completed in a timely and cost-effective way.

“These awesome new tools will be useful on a weekly basis for our committed Thursday night crew, and at our regular working bees prior to events. Thanks Trail fund!”

Other recipients include:

Richmond Hill Trail Carvers – Nelson region
Raglan Mountainbiking Cub – Waikato
Queenstown Mountain Bike Club – Otago
Mountain Bikers of Alexandra – Otago
Nelson Mountain Bike Club – Nelson region
Silvan Forest – Nelson region
Kerikeri Mountain Bike Club – Northland