Question from UK

[kxrideruk]

Hi All
What laws do you have about riding off road in NZ??
Are you allowed to head out into the open fields down the road and ride or do you have to ride on proper tracks etc??
It is really difficult to ride over here now and you can pretty much only ride on tracks :(

[Motu]

No,you can't just head off into the bush anywhere you like,although we used to over 30 yrs ago...so it's because of idiots like me that you can't...

Private land is private land,you need permishion from the owner to ride,you have to know the farmer pretty well before he'll let you just blast around his farm to your hearts content.National Parks and National Parks,protected areas and that means no bikes.There are still some beaches where you can ride your bike,but going up into the dunnes is no longer allowd - the buffer between sea and land has been found to be much more important than we thought.

So there are some private tracks,some of the Pine forests have riding areas,the rest of the time you have to go on an organised ride,and there are plenty of those going on.We also have paper roads,these are surveyed roads that were never put into use,or fell into disuse - you are allowd to use these,but they are often on private land and you need the landowners permision to use them,residents also seem to take over paper roads these days,blocking the publics use of them for their own personal greed.

[chris]

But!! The riding over here is so much better than in the UK. Don't get the wrong idea from Motu's post (which is quite correct), there is just so much of this wonderful country that CAN be ridden. A bikepark over here is not a disused quarry, they tend to be 100's (if not 1000's) of acres in size.