When you join a New Zealand Mountain Biking trip, you’ll be joining a team of people dedicated to ensuring the experience is unique, authentic and completely hassle free.
About Us
A genuine, kiwi experience in a spectacular place
It’s the simple stuff that makes all the difference – outstanding guides, great flexibility in all inclusive trips, the most beautiful forests in New Zealand, incredible riding on the best dirt in the world and a real exploration of our incredible landscapes.
Legendary kiwi hosts
IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE BIKE.
A good guide ensures you’ll have an enjoyable experience – an outstanding guide makes sure you’ll come away feeling absolutely fulfilled having experienced personalised service and expert local knowledge.
Absolutely worth the money for lessons! I think I progressed more in a day and a half with Jamie than I have the last 7 months of living and riding in Rotorua. We had a really nice time working on technique and building skills, but I didn’t realize just how much it helped until we went out for our next ride and suddenly “scary” features felt easy and in control.
We booked via Jamie and he arranged a ride training session with Asher for my 12 year old son Kobe. It was a great session at Redwoods. Anyone who has been here would understand that it has trails all over the place. The session was for the team to provide coaching but also to assist in showing the best trails for Kobes ability. It was a great experience for Kobe and we will be back for another session in the future. Highly recommend if you visit rotarua and you don't know the hill that well book in a session as it will be well worth it.
I can't say enough about riding with Jamie and New Zealand MTB for a few days this November. Progression leaps and bounds, world class trail systems, Jamie's ability to sort out the best trails for us on the fly, and last but not least his low key sense of hospitality felt just like riding and hanging with friends at home. Already planning our return next year 🙂
Jamie with New Zealand Mountain Biking was an amazing guide and it was an outstanding experience. My wife and I did the Hero Dirt Mountain Bike Tour late Oct 2024 and it was an excellent mix of riding in different regions with different scenes. Jamie was very receptive to what we enjoyed, and he tailored the trails to our riding style and skill level. The food and accommodations were great, and we felt very well taken care of. The Hero Dirt tour was the perfect way of introducing us to the mountain biking in the region/New Zealand (my wife and I are both from Canada and we primarily ride enduro in BC and AB). It was a great mix of shuttling and pedalling days, and the heli-bike-trip at the end was amazing. After the Hero Dirt Mountain Bike Tour, my wife and I continued to mountain bike multiple regions in the North and South Island, and I would have to say that the mountain biking we did with Jamie in Rotorua was definitely the best.Jamie seemed to know all the trails like the back of his hand – he was able to give us a run- down of all the upcoming trails, a heads up on all the terrain features, and was able to adapt trails as we went. He also gave us both riding and travel recommendations for the rest of our NZ trip. Sure, you could have had a “similar” experience guiding yourself with Trail Forks, but the comfort of having a very experienced guide in an unfamiliar area allowed us to get a ton of extremely fun riding in without much brain power. Having Jamie as a guide was absolutely invaluable, and I would highly recommend booking with New Zealand Mountain Biking if you want to get the ultimate NZ mountain biking experience.
Jamie from New Zealand Mountain Bike was amazing! We couldn't have asked for a better guide who took us to amazing trails that suited our riding style. Everyone felt so comfortable with Jamie and he gave some great pointers too. We had a group with all different riding styles and he made sure everyone had the best experience. He also made sure we didn't go hungry. If you want to see the best of Rotoruas Redwoods, book in with these guys!
Meet the Team
We’re a tight knit bunch of passionate riders here at new Zealand Mountain Biking. If we’re not out riding, we’re either in the shed fixing bikes, talking about bikes, or looking at videos of other people biking. You get the picture – we’re obsessed, and we’re equally obsessed with biking in the backcountry – especially here in the North Island. Meet the team behind all of the emails, taking you on trips, and ensuring that you’ll have the best experience
Jamie Garrod
Founder, Guide & Instructor
Organised, relaxed and flexible, Jamie is the founder of NZMTB. He still loves guiding and instructing, he worked as an outdoor event medic for 5 years, and is a jack of all trades – Jamie has over 25 years of experience riding bikes (starting at the age of 3) from freestyle BMX to epic backcountry adventures. Jamie’s career has been dedicated to instructing, guiding and sharing adventures with people from all walks of life, a range of activities in a range of remote locations, from running sea kayak programs in Antarctica to safety Kayaking on raft trips in Colorado. There aren’t many places in the world he hasn’t explored on his bike, in a kayak or on foot. He has a Bachelor of Outdoor Ed. & Adventure Rec., PMBIA, PHEC qualified making him the right guy to run the operation.
Asher Hart
Guide & Instructor
Asher loves riding his bike. He started out riding motorbikes at the age of 4. He picked up mountain biking about 7 years later and hasn’t looked back since. He loves pushing his body and bike to the limit and figuring out what he can do to go faster. He has been coaching riders since 2020 and is now chasing his dreams on the Enduro World Cup circuit. He is excited to work with other riders giving them the best riding experience in Rotorua. He’s looking forward to using his experience to help improve others riding and confidence out there on the trails.
Mike Dawson
Guide
A former Olympic Kayak Athlete – Mike has caught the mountain biking bug and added mountain biking to his list of adventure activities. He is the king of constantly dreaming up adventures and expeditions to the most random and remote parts of the planet, and although he’d never admit it he’s New Zealand’s present-day Shackleton! He is always out for a good time and to show people the best parts of the country he loves – New Zealand.
Morgan Moore
Guide & Instructor
Morgan has been a local in Rotorua since he was a grom. His intimate knowledge of the trails we ride makes him the perfect person to show you around. He is one of the most stylish riders you will ever follow and just enjoys being on two wheels. He has raced, travelled, and loves to show others his home trails. Morgan is a great teacher and an awesome guide. He loves to help progress other people’s riding by taking them to well-matched trails and moving at their pace! We are stoked to have him on the team.
Sam Roil
Backcountry Specialist, Guide
Sam is about as local as you get in Rotorua. He knows the Redwoods Forest like the back of his hand and pretty much the rest of the North Island, having spent almost every minute of his spare time getting out into the backcountry. With a guiding history in various locations in the Central North Island, Sam is THE man to show you our wilderness areas.
Tracy van der Merwe
Guide & Instructor
Tracy moved to Rotorua in 2019 purely because of the forest and the trails. She is in there almost every day either on foot or bike. Her background was originally with horses, and she was a horseback safari guide in Africa for many years. But when she moved home to NZ and got on a bike instead of a horse, she was hooked and now has far too many bikes in the shed (N+1) Since then Tracy has competed in most XC races around the central north island and ridden many of the great rides in the north island and some in the south island. Now riding is more of a social affair and she loves just getting out there on her bike with others, exploring the forest, talking trails, sharing the love of bikes and pushing the adrenaline just a little…
Our Safety Process
With many years of collective experience in our team, we’ve worked with AdventureMark New Zealand to put in place solid safety protocols and training for our guides to ensure that our trips are run with the highest level of risk management and safety management preventing incidents. With Jamie being a medic and First Aid trainer the staff here are currently in the BEST practice to ensure you have a good time!
Being a backcountry operator, we also have a range of equipment, and the training to use it, available to get us to safety as quickly as possible if things go wrong. We don’t just rely upon our own experience, we update our wilderness first responder first aid knowledge regularly and do practice runs to keep us on our toes, current, and at the top of our field!