Picton Christchurch riding conditions?

[cheshirecat]

Has anyone ridden this post quake. What's the expected duration, road conditons and overtaking (sorry "making progress") opportunities. Thinking of doing a trip mid April and bike (VFR) will have a fair load on it.

[Coldrider]

Travelled twice return by motorcycle and once by car. Watch for new potholes, build up by trucks forming peaks, plenty of stretches of road been reformed and under Reconstruction, and rock blasting for widening, at the southern end of Aratere Valley. I have only Travelled down the coast so not sure of the Lewis Pass to Chch.

[PistonBlown]

Quite a lot of road works and gravel sections (a couple with no warning signs when I last rode that way 3 weeks ago). Lots of speed restrictions in place and plenty of cops around so you'll need to stick with the speeds. Most of the bendy/narrow sections have 70kmph limits.

They are in the process of upgrading the single lane bridges to having a bridge either way. At the moment most of the approaches to these are gravel and restricted to 30kmph.

Unless you book well in advance no accommodation available in Murchison as the road gangs are based there.

Springs Junction services are now 24 hours. Murchison services are not.

A few places through Lewis the edges of the roads, particularly on bends have started to break up.

If your getting the ferry then the ferry guys often let the bikes off first, just watch your speed on SH1 out of Picton as always two or three cops on that waiting for the ferry traffic.

They are closing SH 65 road north of Springs Junction the 26-29 March from 10pm to 5am each night. Traffic will be diverted via Inangahua and Reefton. According to NZTA that will add another 45 minutes. Shouldn't affect you unless they delay the work.

[Laava]

I went that way 2 weeks ago no probs, but it is a bit busy and around 5.5 hrs to chch. Same time approx if you go through Molesworth...

[Oakie]

With having to stop for road works, we were only able to average 60kph over the 160 odd kms between Blenheim and Murchison 3 weeks ago. (2 hours, 40 minutes)

[veldthui]

Went down in February for the TT2000. Left Picton at 6:25am with GPS indicating arrival at Christchurch at 11:40am. Plenty of stretches of 80kph and road ruined by trucks. Traffic not too bad that time of the morning but the stops for road works are a killer. Gave up counting after 20 stops. Did not see any cops until closer to Christchurch. Final arrival time was 12:20pm. Not my GPS is usually pretty accurate with its arrival time but all the roadworks stops just killed it. The workers were great however and many when they saw me coming kept the Go facing me and even reversed it from stop to go at times to let me catch the back of the queue.

[Honest Andy]

Quite a lot of road works and gravel sections (a couple with no warning signs when I last rode that way 3 weeks ago). Lots of speed restrictions in place and plenty of cops around so you'll need to stick with the speeds. Most of the bendy/narrow sections have 70kmph limits.

They are in the process of upgrading the single lane bridges to having a bridge either way. At the moment most of the approaches to these are gravel and restricted to 30kmph.

Unless you book well in advance no accommodation available in Murchison as the road gangs are based there.

Springs Junction services are now 24 hours. Murchison services are not.

A few places through Lewis the edges of the roads, particularly on bends have started to break up.

If your getting the ferry then the ferry guys often let the bikes off first, just watch your speed on SH1 out of Picton as always two or three cops on that waiting for the ferry traffic.

They are closing SH 65 road north of Springs Junction the 26-29 March from 10pm to 5am each night. Traffic will be diverted via Inangahua and Reefton. According to NZTA that will add another 45 minutes. Shouldn't affect you unless they delay the work.

Great info, thanks, I'm bringing my new bike through there next week so I'm glad I saw this thread.
What's your opinion on how long to get from Christchurch to Picton?

[R650R]

Great info, thanks, I'm bringing my new bike through there next week so I'm glad I saw this thread.
What's your opinion on how long to get from Christchurch to Picton?

About 2Hr 54mins, although some guys from the Naki who'd been down to Invercargill for the day (annual Burger 2700 run) did it in 2Hr 43min :)

[Honest Andy]

About 2Hr 54mins, although some guys from the Naki who'd been down to Invercargill for the day (annual Burger 2700 run) did it in 2Hr 43min :)

Oh yeah, that was in a chopper. Not the hardtailed kind, it was the M*A*S*H kind... ;)

[NiggleC]

It takes a while- my pillion and i left Picton at 8.50am on monday 3 weeks ago heading home to ChCh. First roadworks up the Wairau Valley were the longest - 20 minute wait. From there it was frequent stop / go people all the way to the Hanmer turn off. It took just short of 3 hours to get to Murchison where the pillion demanded a 10 minute respite from the bike seat, we were at Springs Junction for lunch for 30 minutes. then another 10 minute stop at Culverden. We live 5 minutes from our northern motorway and were home at 5pm.

[cheshirecat]

Thanks folks. Much appreciated

[Shadowjack]

In late Feb (on a Thursday): from home to Picton: 8 hrs.
Roadworks, slow traffic, infrequent passing opportunities, and a half hour break at an accident site.
Subtract an hour as you're going to Christchurch.

[Asher]

I travel between Christchurch and Hanmer a few days a week and that stretch of isn't too bad. Expect lots of road works and cops sitting on the straights.
If you are buying a brand new bike I strongly suggest getting a radiator guard, a week or so ago they had traffic driving over about a km of freshly laid gravel over wet tar. Fuck knows how many stone chips and ruined paint jobs that caused, if I was on my bike I would have been furious.

[Kickaha]

Depends on the time of day, When we went to Wangas leaving at Midnight for Boxing day we did 6hrs in a loaded van towing a trailer, Bought a 20T truck down early March and 5.5 hrs to Rangiora, had virtually no traffic and only once got stopped at road works

[Tazz]

Stones galore from trucks blitzing through the road works. Otherwise it's unremarkable. Few road works but nothing outrageous wait wise.

[PistonBlown]

Went down in February for the TT2000. Left Picton at 6:25am with GPS indicating arrival at Christchurch at 11:40am. Plenty of stretches of 80kph and road ruined by trucks. Traffic not too bad that time of the morning but the stops for road works are a killer. Gave up counting after 20 stops. Did not see any cops until closer to Christchurch. Final arrival time was 12:20pm. Not my GPS is usually pretty accurate with its arrival time but all the roadworks stops just killed it. The workers were great however and many when they saw me coming kept the Go facing me and even reversed it from stop to go at times to let me catch the back of the queue.

I finished the TT2000 in Picton as well but rode down to Murchison afterwards - it was the motel owner there that told me they were fully booked until the end of April, fortunately I'd booked months before. I think I must have ridden an hour or so after the ferry traffic as there were lots of cops, 7 in all between Picton and Murchison.

In the pub I heard the road gangs saying that would start setting up at 6am so left at 3:30am to get through Lewis Pass ahead of them. Worked well as I didn't have to stop anywhere except one set of lights on a bridge. Didn't see any cops until the Hurunui Hotel. Traffic was clear other than the odd lorry. Around 6am onwards there was a lot of traffic coming the other way.

So as Kickaha suggests doing the trip at night is a good way to miss the road works, just time it so you're also missing the ferry traffic.