Yes that’s right – there are mountain biking trails in the suburbs of Auckland.

After watching our friend ride Totara Park on strava a lot we decided we had better stop watching and get out there and see what the Totara Park mountain bike club had been up to.

We had ridden at Totara Park quite a few years ago when our kids had just got into mountain biking…turns out a lot can change in a few years and change for the better. The team have been hard at work adding many kilometres of new fun, flowy trails.

If you haven’t ridden Totara Park before or even heard of it then lets start at the beginning. Totara Park is one of Manukau’s largest parks stretching over 216 hectares. It’s approximately 20 mins drive from Auckland’s CBD ( in good traffic ). Travel south along SH1, take the Manukau Exit onto Redoubt Road, head east for about 1.5km and you’ll see the park entrance to the right.

There are great views from the carpark across Auckland city and out to the Manukau harbour. Of course great views generally mean you are at the top of a hill, or more of a ridge in this case but it means the ride starts with a downhill and ends with an uphill. Nothing too fun limiting…just make sure you save something in the tank if you are riding with kids.

Speaking of kids Totara Park has a great little beginners circuit, near the bottom of that hill. It’s a 1 km loop that has a picnic area and little skills park in the middle.

If it’s a blast with your friends that you are after then Totara Park has that covered too with about 18km of fun flowy trails of mostly intermediate level.

So with trails so easily accessible there really is no excuse for not getting out for a spin.