Mountain Biking '42 Traverse'

As I was enjoying the mountain biking so much Nilgun was on the case researching other possible adventures I could tackle. The trail known as the '42 Traverse' was billed as one of New Zealand's best single day mountain biking trails and it was in the Tongariro National Park, where we intended on doing the Tongariro Crossing, so it seemed the best candidate.

At 46km kilometres with a net descent of 500m metres it didn't sound too hard. However, the ride turned out to be the toughest, longest, most extreme mountain biking trail I have ever done. And I only crashed once!

We were told that transport companies refuse to take on customers who are riding alone, and there was a warning against riding alone at the start of the trail (which fortunately Nilgun didn't see). But whilst on the trail I could see why, there was no cell phone coverage anywhere in case you needed help and it's a massive park in which getting lost is easy. Fortunately I was okay and managed to stick to the trail. Despite stopping for numerous photo and video opportunities and chatting with some motocross bikers en route I managed the trail in under 4 hours - we were told it takes 4-6 hours. The video below is put together from some videos I took along the way, unfortunately I couldn't film the actual riding!  If only I had a GoPro camera attached to my helmet it would have made for a more interesting video.

17/4/12: video to come shortly (when we have fast enough internet!).