Opinion

Words & llustration Gary Sullivan

This week I completed an experiment. It wasn’t scientific and it proves nothing, yet I still think the result is worth sharing.

The weather has been iffy. In the first instalment of the experiment, I rode a thing called the Forest Loop on my Surly Krampus.

The Forest Loop is a thing that has been developed in my home town of Rotorua which gives more or less anybody a decent serve of the splendours of the location without being particularly challenging. It is what we call Grade 2 which, around here, means a metre wide path with very few roots or rocks, no drop-offs or anything very steep, and pretty well weather proof. It provides a nice view of three lakes, a variety of forest and 34 kilometres of rolling trail. There are countless ways to adjust the route for personal preference, but the official version is very well signposted so it would be difficult to get lost. It serves two useful purposes for me. Firstly, any newcomers to town who want a ride, can be sent on it. Before the Forest Loop, it was almost impossible to send an initiate into the woods without a guide. Maps are useful, but Whakarewarewa is a complex place. Now, it is simple – just follow the signs. The second benefit for me, is that it provides a good outing when it’s too wet to go into the rest of the trails.

When it’s raining, but I want to rack up some kilometres, the Forest Loop is a good, tried and true choice.

The Krampus is a machine I acquired to do a long bike packing tour on, which, for various lame reasons has not yet happened. Meanwhile, the bike is fun for some applications, on certain days. It’s the original version of a concept Surly more or less invented, 29+. The wheels are 29 inch, and carry three inch tyres.

No suspension, simple and inexpensive running gear, no dropper post, not that much to wear out or worry about. I have added and subtracted a few things over the years but, currently, it sports some bars which are very wide, have a lot of rise, and a cross brace like an old school motocross example.

Once again, when it’s raining but I want to rack up some kilometres, it’s a good choice.

Mostly out of habit, I started my GPS recording device and beetled off up the first climb.

It turned out to be a pretty decent day; the rain was light and stopped a few times, and there was even a brief appearance from the sun.

My route ended up following the Forest Loop until the last section, which is a boring concrete path down the side of the highway. I took a bit of singletrack and a couple of forestry roads to stay on dirt, in the trees. To my surprise, I got back to the van in a hair over two hours. That represents an average speed of 17kph. That’s a good chunk faster than my usual mountain bike ride, but I figured that was because my usual rides involve going up several long, steep climbs where I am going so slow that my GPS device sometimes pauses because it thinks I am stationary. The Forest Loop has a total of 600-odd metres of climbing, but it is never very steep – and is widely distributed over 34km. Still, pretty fast by my standards.

That’s why, a couple of weeks later, I decided to take the same route; this time aboard my late model, comparatively sophisticated, trail bike.

I tried to emulate all the variables. It was a fairly crappy day, but maybe a bit nicer than the first example. Breakfast was matched exactly, coffees calibrated to be of equal quantities and strength. Same outfit, different print on the cotton T.

My ride was very nice, although I confess I was maybe trying a bit harder: the first outing didn’t become part of any performance experiment until after it was completed. This time, I knew there was a sort of race on.

I got back to the van in a time that was faster than the first one. By a minute. Well, a minute and 13 seconds if you want the details. Heart rate, a measurement I sometimes wish I didn’t know about, was fairly evenly matched, and top speed showed only 2kph of difference.

OK, there are dozens of places in the woods I wouldn’t even try to ride on the Krampus that are fun and light work for the Fuel. But still, I’m amazed by how two rides that felt so utterly different to complete were more or less the same in terms of how long they took.

Words Lester Perry
Image Cameron Mackenzie

Once upon a time, Aotearoa was covered mainly by a blanket of native bush. You know the stuff? It’s what most mountain bikers love to ride: large trunks, matts of roots dispersed with fertile dirt, and leaf litter (Beech leaves if you’re lucky).

And this bush was the habitat of many native NZ species. Early Maori cleared what land they needed for agriculture and living space, but it wasn’t until European settlers came ashore in the early 1800s that the axes really got swinging. In the space of roughly 200 years, we (humans as a whole) have cleared a fair chunk of NZ’s land mass, leaving just 24% of it covered in native bush. Forty percent of this lump of land we call home is now pastoral farmland, and 6% is commercial forest, which is also home to a large percentage of NZ’s mountain bike trails. As sustainable as commercial forestry operations now aim to be, there’s no denying that this – combined with pastoral farming – has altered NZ’s ecosystem permanently.

While driving the black band of road that dissects farmland throughout this fine country, I often wonder: what would NZ be like if it were still fully forested and, more specifically, what would mountain biking be like if it were?

Anyone who’s spent time on the end of a spade digging a trail in the native bush would agree it’s hard graft, and working the earth through native bush with a digger is a chore requiring time-consuming finesse and, unless you’re comfortable destroying native roots and eco- systems, then it’s all but impossible. With diggers off the trail builder’s menu when they’re working in native, the speed of trail building would be slow, and the extensive networks we currently see would be a figment of imagination.

If, theoretically, all our trails were in native bush – and given the time necessary to build them by hand – the cost of a build would render them basically out of reach financially, and trail building companies, of which NZ has a number, would be almost non-existent. A lack of professional builders would mean volunteer builds would rule. Lord knows how difficult it is to get a regular crew of keen volunteers to commit to a build under the canopy of pines, let alone the challenges native bush brings.

Native trails are my favourites; their environment and the fact they’re generally hand built give them an inherited technicality and often unique style of flow. It would be amazing to be riding native trails every time we went for a ride. Digger-built flow trails – be gone!

I’m not a hater, though; pine plantation trail networks have enabled NZ’s MTB scene and industry to boom, thanks to their accessible, well-groomed, quickly-built trails. The trail is less directed by the lay of the land or preservation of native trees and more by wherever the digger driver points their machine. With only a small number of roots to dodge, or undergrowth to clear, these trails come easy. On many trails, pine needles help protect the surface through winter and, come spring, a leaf blower and a rake can help rejuvenate much of the trail surface. No one likes losing their favourite trail to logging. Still, with commercial forests running on a 25 – 35 year logging cycle (usually the shorter), it’s inevitable that at some point, one of your favourites will be gone. Once trees are felled, there’s a relatively clean canvas to work on, the opportunity for new trails, and the commercial operations that usually build them. But let’s not forget all the logging slash that’s caused significant problems in the last few years, or that trails built in clear fell generally take much more upkeep and are often terrible to ride due to erosion through a wet winter.

Although I’d love to see a country blanketed in native bush again, I can’t imagine NZ would be such a mountain bike mecca if it was. It’s a little Yin and Yang but, ultimately, big timber will continue to thrive with or without MTB trails. I fear that, without it, the growth and popularity of MTB trails in NZ would be stifled, and we wouldn’t be the global destination we are.