Exploring Nelson’s amazing mountain bike trails on a rental Electric Mountain Bike.
Nelson is rightly famous for its mountain biking trails, but also somewhat infamous for how steep and high the climbs are. With so many great trails it often seems like visitors only get to sample a tiny portion of them before they are worn out from the climbs!
Gravity Nelson has two solutions for this problem: Shuttles and E-mtbs. Shuttles are discussed elsewhere in this web page (HERE), and are certainly awesome, but not all trails can be shuttled, and for smaller groups it can sometimes be hit or miss organising enough people to ensure a shuttle happens.
To help riders make the most of their time riding in Nelson Gravity has recently added a number of Mondraker electric mountain bikes to its rental fleet. Currently we have both Shimano powered Mondraker Dusks, and Bosch powered Mondraker Crafty’s. These electric mountain bikes are set up for Nelson’s trails with beefy tires, Cushcore in the rear tire, and tubeless sealant. These bikes are incredibly stable and handle the rough Nelson trails with ease. With 29″ wheels and tonnes of suspension they roll over everything and are heaps of fun.
To test how much of an advantage these bikes give you when exploring Nelson’s mountain bike trails the boss took one out for a two hour spin (in Codgers on the Beginner and Intermediate trails there) and recorded the details:
Moving time: 1 hour 52 minutes. Distance 30km. Elevation gained/lost 1,049m.
Leaving the shop at 140 Bridge Street:
Gravity Nelson at 140 Bridge Street.
Ride over to Brook Street and the entrance to Codgers Mountain Bike Park. Then 16 minutes to get up the Dun Mountain Trail to Tasman Journeys, up Jacks Track to Middle road, then the final climb up Firball Climb to the top.
Start of Firball in Codgers Mountain Bike Park: Only 16 minutes from the entrance of Codgers.
A quick spin down Firball to the bottom proved the Mondraker handles well on flow trails, although it does take a bit of getting used to how heavy it is when jumping, so you need to adjust the timing of your techniques.
Then ride up the access road past the water treatment plant to the Firball skid site and the entrance of IV Line in 14 minutes.
Up to the entrance of IV Line via the steep access road in 14 minutes
A quick run down IV Line (3:30) to get used to tighter single-track, and then back up the access road in 15 minutes to the entrance to Hulk n Hogan.
The entrance to Hulk n Hogan at the Firball skid site
Razz down Hulk n Hogan (not sure how fast) to the entrance of Crazy Horse and then a full Crazy Horse (1:54) to the bottom, Crazy Horse really shows off the cornering ability of these awesome bikes.
The entrance to Crazy Horse at Codgers Mountain Bike Park
From the bottom a quick ride back up to the Dun Mountain, up Tasman Journeys, then over to the top of P51 (13 minutes).
P51 entrance ready for some good times.
A fun and casual run down p51 in 5 minutes and then up the Dun Mountain Track to the entrance to Tu Meke.
Time for some Tu Meke
Then back up and a quick run down Gully (hey, who stole the sign?).
Hey, who stole the “Gully” sign?
Then down to the new bike wash and public toilets at Andrews Field to rinse the bike off before heading back to the shop. Finished at the shop about 2 and a half hours after starting, and after all that riding he still had “one bar” left on the battery.
A fantastic couple of hours out for the boss, who isn’t in the best of shape, heart rate throughout the ride was a fairly gentle 130-150, finished tired, happy, and content, but not destroyed. The whole ride was around 25kms and a little over 1000m of climbing (which of course means the same amount of fun descending!). Definitely not something that would be easy to punch out on a normal (“Acoustic”) bike.
The Mondraker e-craftys are super stable and planted and rail corners like crazy, super fun. The suspension platform is forgiving without being too plush, and the brakes and tires are set up perfectly for Nelson conditions.
Gravity’s Mondraker electric mountain bikes can be rented for a half day for $139 and a full day for $199, you can get a lot of trail under your tires in a very short amount of time. The Mondraker Electric Mountain Bikes are also demo bikes for those who are e-curious, but be careful, a test ride on one could have you converted very quickly.
Cheers.
