NZbyBike October and Thank God it's Spring!

Hi All,

So much has been happening in NZbyBike land that it is hard to know where to start. Most importantly the website has absolutely taken off and is really beginning to reach a critical mass in terms of visitor numbers, time on site and average page views. We have also seen a real increase in people actually using the website to contact listed businesses and make enquiries - which makes us feel really good about what we are doing!

Last month also saw us sign an agreement with Bookit to provide links to our partners availability for real-time bookings where available.

It is interesting to watch which rides are hot and which rides people are doing the research on.  This month the St James Great Ride and the Waikato River Trail have definitely been flavour of the month - both have received a lot of press lately.  Particularly, the St James Great Ride which is due to open November 20th.  Also this coming month we are expecting the River Trail in Gibbston Valley to open for riding, which will ultimately make up part of the Queenstown Trail.

On the Queenstown Trail, NZbyBike has some pretty big news too.  We have agreed to feed all our supplier directory content onto a new website that is being developed by the Wakatipu Trails Trust for rides and walks around Queenstown.  Any businesses associated with cycle tourism such as accommodation, tours and transport, restaurant and cafes, or bike services will be able to list in the NZbyBike database and subsequently have all their content appear on the Queenstown Trails website.  This is a very exciting partnership and one we hope that other trails will imitate.  For the Wakatipu Trails Trust it means they get a really high quality website, full of great content and functionality without needing to spend money on web development; money that can be better used to develop and maintain more trails.

On the actual riding front the last month has been really busy for us all at NZbyBike.  For starters we ran a special Great Lakes Tour from Tekapo to Mount Cook and onto Ohau.  For the most part the weather was incredible (apart from the snow over those last two kilometers into Mount Cook Village) and all 13 riders had a fantastic time.  A special congratulations has to go out to John and Mary Thompson from Queenstown who led from the front for the whole ride and were the only two to make the last few kilometers into Mount Cook despite the vicious headwind.  Check out the photos from the weekend on Facebook.

The next big event we are running is the Mavora Madness Weekend on December 4th and 5th.  Starting with a boat trip across Lake Wakatipu on the Earnslaw we will ride through Mount Nicholas Station and onto Mavora Lakes for a big high country dinner and a night of camping.  Even better still, we will carry all your tents and gear, do all the cooking, all you have to do is pedal and enjoy the scenery.  We ride out the next morning and back to Walter Peak Station for an optional Sunday afternoon BBQ.  Both days are approximately 55km riding on gravel back-country roads.  Find out more here.

The boys have all be doing some social (emphasis on very social) racing too.  Matt and Scott rode the Rail Trail 100 miler and got slammed by the meanest headwind for the last 40km, Dan joined the Queenstown Pedallers and rode the Jacks Point 8hour event in beautiful sunshine and then followed this up with the Twizel Dusky Trail race on Labour Day - only to ride the whole race with his front brakes jammed on.  Scott also rode the Single Speed Worlds in Rotorua which by all accounts was an amazing event - although the thought of Scott dressed up as a Catholic School Girl is not a pretty image.

Looking forward to November

• Mat, Matze and Dan are entered in the fun Battle of the Basin Adventure Race this weekend
• Toby and Dan are riding the Molesworth Muster (Dan turns 40 the night before so might be an interesting 80km wobble)
• Dan is in Kaikoura on the 3rd November presenting on social media strategies as part of the BNZ Seminar Series with BNZ Chief Economist Tony Alexander
• St James Great Ride is opening 20th November
• Dan is in the Bay of Islands for the Backpacking, Youth and Adventure Travel Association meeting on the 18th November
• A few of us will ride the Bannock Gutbuster at the end of the month
• Plus the new site for the Wakatipu Trails Trust will go live, the promised new mapping on NZbyBike.com will finally go live and loads more rides are set to be written up (if you can help write content or supply images we would love to hear from you)

Happy riding and thank god it's spring!

Scott, Mat, Matt. Matze, Toby, Nicole and Scott

P.S. Last minute - just in: Check out this awesome review of NZbyBike.com we found on Happy and The Bike