Our crowded bike trails - patience may not be enough

Our treasured local bike trails are one of the many reasons that locals love living here, but even those beautiful, peaceful hours in the middle of nowhere appear to be falling victim to the determination of our Government and tourism industry to go for unlimited numbers of visitors.

Yesterday (December 29) was a case in point - especially on the trails from Lake Hayes out to Kinross in the Gibbston Valley.

Great trails - but following recent rain storms parts of the tracks are under repair - sometimes near fairly hair-raising steep drops down towards the Kawarau River. Caution is required.

OK - so its peak holiday season, for tourists and locals alike. Patience and tolerance is required.

But parts of these trails yesterday involved challenges that go far beyond patience and tolerance.

The biggest issue was large groups - mainly of overseas tourists. Some extended family groups involved up to 20 people all together on clearly unfamiliar rental e-bikes. Then there were lots of tourists, again appearing to be from overseas, that understandably wanted to stop (a lot) to take photos. But they were stopping right in the middle of the trail, and on bridges like the Edgar Bridge, where things can get a bit hairy when moving cyclists start to encounter large groups of non-moving cyclists.

• The Edgar Bridge - not a suitable place for large groups to stop midway and take photos.

The other issue was the extreme mix of trail users …. brave Mums with two kids on board a non-e-bike, wobbly first timers, confident people, nervous people, super fast people, slow people. And people who though it was somehow OK just to stop mid-trail on a blind corner to make a mechanical adjustment to their bike or check the tyres.

Then there’s the mixed group who are focussed on chatting to each other and keeping pace with the slowest/youngest/oldest member of their group rather than paying attention to other trail users.

You might argue that this is the same user environment as our public road network … but with no speed limits, no air bags, no driver licensing, no registration numbers, no safety belts, no police and fewer safety barriers.

Plus - there’s people who are just walking on the trails, as they are clearly entitled to do. Yesterday it was clear those people, now in the minority, experienced both fear and anger in getting from A to B on foot, especially parents walking with their children.

It’s a new(ish) problem for the owners and operators of our trails - and the tourism industry - to confront. Plus there’s the question of user pays. Our trails are considerably funded by local supporters - and our tourists are simply not asked to contribute to the cost of safety, upkeep, repairs and construction - or even helicopter rescues at the scene of bike accidents.

With e-bike speeds now up to 30 kmh or higher on narrow trails, and venues like Kinross seeing more bikes than cars in their parking areas (main image above), it’s time for us all to take a different look at our local trails and figure out how to make them both safer and better funded by all users.