One trail. Plenty of reasons to love it.
Why we specialise in the Otago Central Rail Trail at Big Sky Bike Adventures
New Zealand has no shortage of wonderful places to ride a bike. Our own list of “we really must do that one” trails keeps growing, usually while we’re supposed to be doing something else. But here at Big Sky Bike Adventures, we’ve chosen to concentrate on one: the Otago Central Rail Trail.
We live beside it, plan our working days around it, and spend a surprising amount of our free time talking about it. You might think we’d have exhausted the subject by now. Apparently not.
The scenery gets your attention. The people and places make you linger.
Poolburn Gorge quite rightly gets plenty of camera time and instagram action. But ask people about their trip afterwards, and the stories often wander off the trail: a great dinner, a conversation with their host, or the coffee stop that somehow became lunch.
The riding connects it all. You travel through working rural communities, spend the night, meet people and leave with a little more than a photograph.
There’s room to make it your kind of holiday
Some people arrive with cycling legs and ambitious plans. Others would prefer a little assistance, frequent refreshments and reassurance that their bag will beat them to the next stop. We can work with both.
A day on the trail can include a gorge, a long lunch, a browse around a village or a detour for curling. The pleasure is in finding a pace that gives you time for the things you enjoy.
There’s still proper riding involved, of course. Gravel, distance and the occasional opinionated headwind all deserve consideration. That’s where choosing the right bike and achieveable daily distances makes a difference.
Knowing one trail well makes a difference
There’s knowing where a place is on the map, and then there’s knowing whether it makes a sensible overnight stop for your group, how you’ll get to dinner and where your e-bike battery can charge.
Our days involve plenty of those details. We talk to accommodation hosts, drivers and café owners, keep track of changes, and work out how to fit everything together around the people riding.
That knowledge helps us plan your holiday. It also helps when the weather has other ideas, someone needs a shorter day, or a small change of plan would make everyone happier.
Familiar never seems to become boring
We know the route. We’re still regularly distracted by the views. A familiar stretch looks different under autumn light, with snow on the ranges, or on a still morning when you can hear very little beyond the susurration of tyres on gravel. (Apologies, we’re showing off one of our new favourite words. But it does perfectly capture that soft sound as you roll through the quiet)
And every group brings its own version of the adventure. We may have seen that view before. We’ll probably take another photograph anyway.
We’ve made our home here
Naseby is home to us and to Big Sky Bike Adventures. The Rail Trail is part of our everyday life, and so are the communities along it. These are the places where we work, catch up with friends and take visiting family. Sharing them comes with a little local pride and a strong desire for people to go home having had a genuinely good holiday.
There are plenty of wonderful trails waiting to be ridden. We hope you get to enjoy a good number of them.
If the Otago Central Rail Trail is next on your list, we’d love to help you get to know it. Tell us who’s coming, how you like to travel and how much riding sounds enjoyable. We’ll put together a personalised proposal, with the bikes, beds, bags and transport worked out around you.
We’ll leave room for the unexpected coffee stops.
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