Nelson Mountain Bike Guide: Coppermine, Codgers and Wairoa Gorge

On a sun-bleached ridge above Nelson, the Coppermine descent drops out of beech forest onto a rust-red mining bench. The town below has spent two decades quietly turning itself into one of the southern hemisphere's most varied mountain-bike destinations.

By the IMPT Travel desk · Published 2026-05-30

On a clear morning in February, the gravel ramp out of Brook Valley smells of beech mast and warm rock. Riders grinding up the old Dun Mountain Railway line have roughly eleven kilometres of steady Grade 3 climb ahead before the trail breaks treeline, traverses an exposed mineral belt and pitches into the Grade 4 descent toward Maitai Dam. That single loop, the Coppermine Trail, is the reason most visiting riders fly into Nelson. The reason they stay an extra three days is everything stitched around it.

The signature ride: Coppermine and Dun Mountain

The Coppermine Trail is one of the New Zealand Cycle Trail's Great Rides. From central Nelson it measures roughly 43 km as a full loop, or 40 km from the Brook Street trailhead. The climb to Coppermine Saddle follows the bed of New Zealand's first railway, built in the 1860s to haul chromite ore, which keeps the gradient civilised but the day long. Most riders budget four to six hours; locals call a full day more honest.

From the saddle, the descent to the Maitai Dam is the bit that ends up on social media: roughly 9 km of rock-strewn Grade 4 singletrack threading through the exposed ultramafic ridge, with views across Tasman Bay before the trail drops back into shaded native forest. Strong riders shortcut over the Tantragee Saddle and finish via a Codgers downhill such as Crazy Horse or Firball rather than the gentler riverside return.

Codgers MTB Park: the town's backyard

Codgers sits inside the Nelson city boundary, ten minutes' pedal from the cathedral. Trails fan out around three hills topping out near 400 m. The grade spread is unusually wide for an urban park: easy green meanders for families, blue flow lines such as P51 with rolling berms and tabletops, and full double-black downhill lines that lean on the steep, rooty terrain. There is no chairlift; climbs are pedalled or shuttled by local operators including Gravity Nelson and Mountain Bike Nelson, which run vans up to the upper trailheads through the summer.

Wairoa Gorge: the day every visitor books

Forty minutes south of town, past Brightwater and a long stretch of gravel, Wairoa Gorge is the destination ride. Built privately between 2010 and 2013, opened to the public in 2016 and gifted to the Department of Conservation in 2018, it now holds around 70 km of hand-cut singletrack inside a steep beech-forest catchment. Each shuttle lap drops about 1,000 m of vertical. Grades span 2 to 5; Benched As and Bermed As introduce the flow, Creamed Rice earns its blue stripe and Peaking Ridge is the expert black diamond locals send guests to last.

Access is shuttle-only, with mandatory group riding and radios because there is no cell coverage in the valley. A day pass runs around NZ$99, plus a Nelson Mountain Bike Club membership (around NZ$45) that also unlocks several other privately maintained networks in the region.

Getting there without the long-haul guilt

Nelson Airport sits four kilometres from the town centre and runs roughly 35-minute hops from Wellington, 50 minutes from Christchurch and 80 minutes from Auckland. An eBus electric service connects the terminal with the city half-hourly between 7am and 7pm, and the airport itself maintains two dedicated bike-reassembly zones beside the arrivals door.

For visitors arriving from the North Island, the lower-carbon route skips the domestic flight entirely: the Cook Strait ferry from Wellington to Picton takes about three hours, with regular coaches onward to Nelson. Coastal cycle lanes link the airport to the city and the Railway Reserve in about 25 minutes by bike.

Season, weather and when to come

Nelson is one of the sunniest spots in New Zealand, which extends the riding window further than most South Island networks. The core season runs November through April, with February and March offering the driest dirt and longest evenings. December and January bring the peak holiday surge, so booking accommodation early matters. Winter rides remain feasible on lower Codgers trails on bluebird days, but the high traverse above Coppermine Saddle is exposed and best avoided after rain or in southerly fronts. Late autumn closures sometimes follow storm damage in the Maitai catchment, so a check with the Nelson Mountain Bike Club before committing to the loop is sensible.

Where to base up

Most riders pick a base inside the city: Brook Valley puts the Coppermine and Codgers trailheads at the door, while accommodation in Tahunanui trades pedal access for beach swims after dusty laps. Richmond, twenty minutes south, suits those splitting time between Wairoa Gorge shuttle days and the gentler Great Taste Trail through hop gardens and vineyards. Wherever the base, the rhythm tends to settle into the same pattern: a Codgers spin on arrival, a Coppermine day mid-trip, a shuttle day at Wairoa Gorge, and one slow morning at a Mapua café watching the tide turn.

A full 4K run of the Coppermine Trail on a clear summer day, from Brook Valley up the old Dun Mountain Railway and down to the Maitai Dam.