Born to share. Born to ride.
About Bike Glendhu
Nestled amongst the wonderful town of Wānaka, tranquil waters of Glendhu Bay and Mount Aspiring National Park, Bike Glendhu was born to be tackled by two-wheeled explorers and shared by all who are willing to earn it.
Mother Nature spent the last 250 million years crafting her canvas into a mountain bikers’ paradise – our job was to add the finishing touches without ruffling her feathers and lay down a few rules to guard it for generations to come.
Starting with the most important part, our pedal-only mountain bike trails have been designed alongside ecologists to work within the natural topography of the land, including kanuka scrub, wetlands and rivers. We thought you might also like somewhere to share tales, refuel and refresh, so have built an off-the-grid hub that borrows and blends with the epic landscape.
Our mission is the better well-being and the environment through sharing our passion and this incredible playground.
Got a spare minute up your sleeve? Why not learn a little more about how Bike Glendhu came about and what goes on out here.
OUR PURPOSE
To better well-being and the environment through sharing our passion and our playground.
VALUES
- SHARING: Our passion, our playground and our home
- FAMILY: Caring for each other
- BRAVE: To challenge, to lead, to innovate
- EXCELLENCE: Through the delivery of a world-class experience
- HEALTH & WELL-BEING: Strengthening our environment, our people and our community
Picking up where nature left off
Our Story
It was here in 2015, on this stunning piece of land, that our two John’s met and Bike Glendhu began. John McRae, an out-of-the-box farmer who was always hunting for ways to utilise the land in a way that respected and preserved the natural environment, and John Wilson, a corporate come health and wellness expert with a love of mountain biking.
After attending a wedding at Glendhu Station and hearing the owner was keen to build some trail to offset his fencing plans, Wilson knocked on McRae’s door to ask for access to his land to guide riders. The two blokes discovered a shared passion for the outdoors, all things sustainable and a vision to create Wanaka’s first purpose-built mountain bike park.
The deal: if Wilson made it happen then McRae would lease him the land.
This was sealed with a handshake, and the work began. Three years of researching, concepting and environmental impact-analysis led to consent for 50km of trail and a base building being granted in May 2018.
In 2019 we announced Bike Glendhu to the world and were pretty stoked with the support that flooded in. From local grommets to international athletes, every two-cents, thumbs up and pat on the back fuelled the fire – which came in handy over the winter trail-building months. Bike Glendhu was set to open in December, but after serious flooding in the region caused extensive slipping and trail damage, opening was pushed out to late January, 2020.
After only eight weeks of operation Bike Glendhu once again closed to the public after New Zealand moved swiftly in to Level 4 lockdown to combat the spread of the global pandemic, COVID-19. After kiwi’s kicked isolation out of the ball park, we opened once again in May 2020.
Today we are proud as pie to invite you to enjoy the fruits of our labour, ride the trails, join the community and share in the land that inspired Bike Glendhu. We’ll see you up there.
– The two Johns
