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NEW-ZEALAND COMMUNITY TRUST Our club is supported by NZ Community Trust. We appreciate their help with our trailbuilding objective of building a children's trail on the Sainsbury Rd land on Mt Pirongia. To find out more about New Zealand Community Trust, click on their logo at right.

Sainsbury Rd, Pirongia - Mountain Bike Trail Plans
December 2010 Update- FIRST TRAIL OPEN!
On Sunday 5th December a team of keen volunteer workers pushed through to the end of the first loop of trail. The workers included, Scott and Aidan Miller, Chris Moody, Robert Brooks, Blair Prescott and sons, Shane Oliver and Tui Allen. Click the thumbnail on the right to see the complete picture. It shows the track-building at the historic moment the track broke out of the bush back onto the existing 4x4 track. Scott Miller in the foreground.

It is the trail shown in yellow on the map below. To test the new trail, park at the top of Sainsbury Road using either of the parking areas (shown as pale blue rectangles), ride uphill on the gravel road, (marked in white). It becomes the 4x4 track shown in green. Veer left at the top into the new trail, (yellow), which is a windy downhill through the bush on single track. As the map shows it opens back out onto the 4x4 track at the bottom to complete the loop.

March 2010 update (scroll down for maps below)

Sainsbury Forest is a new area the Waipa Mountain Bike Club is developing for mountain biking in the Waikato. The forest belongs to the Waipa District Council and is a mixture of native forest and pine, with an excellent mix of low angled ridges and steeper terrain for trail construction.

The club has received resource consent to develop trails in an 350 hectare block of land on the northern side of the forest. This includes a network of logging roads which will provide access to different regions of the forest. The club is currently arranging a lease for the land which will provide us with control over access and long term security for the project.

The initial objective is to construct a 2.5 km track which descends from the top of the forest down to the forestry entrance, paralleling one of the forestry roads. Once the initial trail is completed the club will consider plans for further trails in other parts of the forest.

Trail preparation has already begun using club volunteers. This has started with the uppermost section of track. The club will be running regular Sunday morning working bees throughout winter. Anyone is welcome to attend- the more volunteers the better. These are advertised on the club mailing list, or for more details contact Brendan at 07 871 9155.

Although no tracks have been completed in the forest yet, mountain bikers are welcome to explore the forestry roads. Park outside the forestry gate without blocking the road. Alternatively the hill climb from Pirongia village to the top of either forestry road makes a great workout (that way you can return to the pub or café). Illegal vehicle access is an issue in the forest. The forestry gate and signage has repeatedly vandalised. If you see any vehicles in the forest please record vehicle licence plate numbers and forward these on to the club. We expect this will become less of an issue once the forest is frequented by MTBers.

Below is a concept plan for the initial trail. Hopefully we will see you up there soon.

Brendan Haigh, Club President

In the two maps below the following key applies:

Satellite overview showing the areas we are working with:

District plan overview of the same area:

Old 2009 Message: (still has some relevant points to make)
We currently have a proposal with the Waipa District Council to develop a MTB trail on WDC foresty block at the top of Sainsbury Rd. Click on the link below to download a copy of our proposal. Please note that public access to the forest is currently limited as part of the land contains the Te Awamutu water supply. No trail building or track clearing is permitted. If our proposal is accepted by the council then part of the forest will be opened up for public access and the club will be permitted to build selected trails. No unauthorized trail building will be allowed- if you want to build a MTB trail then join the club, learn some skills (we are running a trail building workshop in April 09) and help us develop some quality local trails.

PDF of our proposal for the Waipa District Council