Planning to travel to New Zealand in November.
Thinking about joining a 6-10 day organized road or mountain bike tour.
If you have direct experience with any one of the hundreds of companies offering multi-day tours, I’d like to hear from you.
What are the best routes, and the best/most reputable companies that offer 6-10 day tours?
I’m looking for more hard core tour operators that are all about the ride, and not the tourist sites along the way. Most companies seem to cater to novice riders on easy trails/roads, and hybrid bikes.
I’ve looked at many websites, but they all seem too beginner focused for my taste. Any recommendations or feedback?
For a road cycling trip I would suggest riding around the Coromandel and some of The Bay of Plenty (North Island). Great scenery. There’s a couple of really good books that list the best rides in NZ: “Classic New Zealand Road Rides” by Jonathan Kennet and “Classic New Zealand Mountain Bike Rides” by Jonathan Kennet (and his brothers). Almost worth buying these and then working out where you want to go. I live in NZ and I’m slowly working my way through rides from both books.
BTW, if you’re here at the end of November you could do the round Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge. About 153km and NZ’s largest cycling event. Mountain bike events as well up to 85km. Various shorter road events as well. Great mountain biking at Taupo as well. Rotorua not far away also has great mountain biking.