Reflections on the 2025 Tour Aotearoa Brevet

TA Brevet Ride Numbers:

Total Days: 30

Rest Days: 1 (needed bottom bracket repair)

Miles Traveled: 1823.7

Total Elevation Gain: 99140

Average Miles: 62.9 

Longest Ride: 91.3 miles

Shortest Ride:  23.3 miles (excluding zero day)

Total Climbing: 99140’

Most Climbing in a Day: 6755’ 

Least Climbing in a Day: 577’

Days with Rain: 11 out of 30 days

Number of Ferry Rides: 5

Number of chains that needed to be replaced: 2 (one each, shortly after the beach)

Number of days where goats jumped onto the trail in front of us, scaring the bejeezus out of us: 2

Number of fellow brevet riders who finished the same day we did: ~12

Trip Totals including days before and after the brevet:

Miles: 1898.95

Climbing: 105437’

Overnights (Including night before and after): We ended up preferring to stay dry indoors.  The holiday parks and hostels were great places to stay.

• Hotel: 18
• Cabins / tiny homes: 6
• Backpackers / Hostels: 3
• Tent Camping: 4 — amazing views of the night sky when it wasn’t cloudy

Highlights:

• Heading down to Ninety Mile Beach with the riders at the start of the brevet, seeing the giant sand dune, riding through the creek bed, and arriving at the beach with the surf pounding in.
• Riding singletrack through forests filled with trees, moss, ferns that could be as large as palm trees, calling birds (some that sound like R2D2 from the original star wars), and rail tunnels.  The Timber Trail, the Kaiwhakauka Track which ended in a jetboat ride to Pipiriki, the Remutaka Cycle Trail, and the West Coast Wilderness Trail were all favorites.
• Seeing the birds of New Zealand which evolved with no predators and thus aren’t too intimidated by mammals like us.  
• Riding the jet boat from the landing near the Bridge to Nowhere to Pipiriki.  The jet boat driver was very careful when near any canoes, but we did have some speedy turns near cliffs, a real blast.
• Seeking out the 30 photos we needed to take at photo checkpoints to make the Tour Aotearoa Hall of Fame.  The quest for these sights took us places we might have otherwise missed, the descriptions were entertaining, and we had fun debating where to snap some of the pictures such as which cows were most photogenic.
• We were very taken with the eels at the Kiwi Centre in Hokitika on our one zero day!
• The swing bridges were cool every time although the very narrow ones by the Bridge to Nowhere, where signs direct you to tip your bike on the back wheel were challenging. This was especially true when there were a couple steps up to the narrow bridge.  After a while we realized we could wriggle the handlebars through and wheel across normally in close quarters.
• Hokitika Cycles in Hokitika and Velo Ronny’s Bicycle Store in Whanganui were the kind of bike shops you love stopping into, staffed with super friendly people who enjoyed helping TA riders.
• After the brevet, we toured Stewart Island where we saw some amazing bird life, did some hiking, and enjoyed a few days off the bike.  We also took a tour to Milford Sound and did a short bike tour that included  visiting a winery.  There’s so much to see in New Zealand both on and off the TA.  While it’s challenging to lug bikes around when you’re not riding, these post-ride adventures were also trip highlights.

The only downside to the Tour Aotearoa:

• Sharing some roads with big lumber trucks, busses, and impatient tourists when there’s no shoulder. Drivers are at least as considerate as drivers in the US, but there’s so little space on some roads that you could reach out and touch some passing vehicles.
• After being passed at speed by a large truck or bus, you might get blown around for as long as 15-20 seconds.
• Many New Zealand cyclists wear neon green or yellow for increased visibility, though we didn’t feel unseen with our blinking lights and reflectors. There just wasn’t much room.

TA compared to riding the Divide:

• Brevet vs Touring:
• The choice of doing the brevet vs touring is similar to the trade offs to racing the Tour Divide vs touring it.  When you join the event, there’s a lot of cameraderie among the participants, especially those on your same pace who you see repeatedly during the ride.  Outside of the events, you will still meet a lot of riders on the route.
• For the TA brevet, participants must offset their carbon emissions from travelling to the start and end of the brevet.  This was over US$400 for us travelling from the western US, so kinda pricey. There’s no entry fee for the Tour Divide
• For the TA brevet, participants must donate NZ$100 to a charity of their choice.  We proudly donated to Alzheimers New Zealand and the Neurological Foundation of New Zealand.
• If you tour outside of the TA brevet, chances are very good that you’ll meet others en route as you will on the Divide.
• Cell phone coverage: Outside of towns, there isn’t much phone coverage on either route except, unexpectedly, we had coverage in the great basin along the divide.
• Resupply & Food:
• Towns are closer together on the TA, and other than the first day, we never carried more than 2 liters of water which saves weight on the bike. 
• A lot of small grocery stores carried freeze dried dinners in New Zealand.  We’ve never seen them for sale outside of outdoor sport stores along the Divide.
• There are way more pies and fish and chips on the TA than on the Divide!
• Camping vs Hotels: With careful planning and flexibility, you could ride the TA without a sleep system. Your bike would be a lot lighter, and it’s nice to not pack up wet gear in the morning. It’s too far between hotels to do that unsupported on the divide if you sleep every night.  You pretty much need a sleep system on the Divide.
• Clothes and Gear: 
• We didn’t have any really cold nights in New Zealand, and I didn’t wear my non-biking gloves.  I only wore my warm shirt once, and it was more about laundry than about warmth. I never used my overmitts though there were a couple of mornings where my hands were cold.  I used all my warm gear on the Divide.
• On day 1 on the beach at the TA, we each started with 4 liters of water.  After that, we never carried more than 2 liters.  That’s a lot of weight you don’t have to carry!  
• In New Zealand, we only used our water filter a couple of times at camp sites where the water is collected from rain, and signs explicitly tell you to purify the water.  In contrast, we had 8-10 liters of capacity on the divide, started most days with at least 4 liters, and filtered from cow ponds and creeks.
• E-bikes: they are really popular in the states, but we don’t recall seeing any on the Divide, perhaps due to the distance between charging opportunities. They are popular in NZ, and we saw a number of people riding the TA route on them.