A late entrant to the full throttle world of adventure riding has developed a dedicated facility for motorheads to rev up their manoeuvres.
The 80,000sqm facility, which is adjacent to the existing motorsport facility at Kohatu Park, near Tapawera, opened on Saturday and features a 5.8km track, log rides, and sand and gravel pits.
Kohatu Park board member and driver of the project, Dave McLeod, says, after purchasing an adventure motorbike in May and completing a training course at Cable Bay Adventure Park, he identified that a permanent adventure training area would spin other riders’ wheels.
He says he rode solo to develop his idea since fellow board members had different commitments, and leased 110,000sqm of land from the Kohatu Park Trust.
Along with about 20 volunteers and Garry Adcock’s tractors and diggers, Dave began developing the facility in August.
“Overall, it’s a motorsport park so it fits with that criteria around providing a place to use motorcycles and whilst I focused initially on adventure bikes, we found that kids bikes suit the track as well,” he says.
“It’s not a motocross track, in that we don’t want high-powered motorbikes going round at one million miles an hour because it’s a very tight and twisty track to practice skill sets on turning, braking, clutch work.
“There’s plenty of interest and there’s a variety of people that ride motorbikes… and I’m just hoping to give those people somewhere to go permanently.”
Dave says the facility will be open every second weekend on either a Saturday or Sunday and the open dates until December are available on its website.
He says there will be an initial charge of $30 per adult and $10 per child under 15, but once paid they will automatically become members to use the facility for free on future rides. There will be staff on site to comply with health and safety.
He says the open day on Saturday was a roaring success with more than 30 riders, and Nelson Motorcycle Club and Tasman Honda providing demonstrations.
Dave says he now plans to attract sponsors for the facility to cover its development costs, introduce more technical enduro features and on-site demonstration bikes, and build a 20km to 25km single loop track around the park’s border.
