Cycling in Queenstown

Is cycling in Queenstown for you?

The answer depends on what you want from the bike. Strong means it works well for most visitors; Conditional means it works if you plan for the catch; Limited means a narrow use works, but the bike is not a sound way to get about. The verdicts are ours, drawn from the sources at the foot of the page.

What cycling is like

A trail network, not a road network

The Queenstown Trail is one of New Zealand’s Great Rides, the national set of cycle trails, and it is unusual among them. It is not one route from A to B but a web of sections across the Wakatipu Basin, so you can ride an hour of it or four days. Its total length depends on who is counting: the trail trust gives “about 130” and “over 150” kilometres on different pages, Tourism New Zealand gives 138, and the national cycle trail body’s nine sections add up to about 112. We give each section’s figure from the national body and treat the total as about 130.

What makes it work for visitors is that the sections join places worth arriving at: the town, Frankton’s lake shore, Arrowtown, the Kawarau Bridge and the cellar doors of Gibbston. The trail code is simple and shared with walkers: keep left, pass on the right, use your bell or call out, and give way to people on foot.

Gravel, hills and grades

The national body describes the surface as smooth, well-maintained gravel, and recommends a mountain bike or an e-bike with sturdy tyres. That is not road-bike territory. Each section carries a New Zealand Cycle Trail grade: 2 is easy, 3 intermediate, 4 advanced. Most of the trail is grade 2 or 3, but the grade does not mean flat. The trust’s own map flags short, steep rises even on the lakeside ride, at Battery Hill, beside the council depot in Queenstown Gardens and on the Park Street connection.

The roads in between

The trail is good because it keeps you off the roads, and the roads are why that matters. State Highway 6 carries the traffic between Queenstown, Frankton and the airport, and on to Gibbston and Cromwell. A commuter quoted by the local news site Crux describes a stretch near Frankton with no shoulder and drivers forcing him into the ditch, and says “There’s bound to be a death.”

In November 2025 a cyclist was seriously injured in a crash with a car on the same highway at Gibbston and flown to hospital in Dunedin. An off-road link from Jack’s Point to Frankton, away from the highway, was funded in 2019; we could not confirm that it has been built. We could not confirm what cycle provision exists on Frankton Road or Ladies Mile today, or the district council’s rules for riding on the lakefront and in the town centre. We found no crash figures for the district, so we cannot put a number on the risk. Nothing we found lets us call riding these roads safe, and we would not.

Where cycling works

Five parts of the basin are worth a bike, and one boundary is worth knowing. The map shows where the six rides in the table are; the numbers match.

The lakeshore

The Frankton Track leaves Queenstown Gardens and follows Lake Wakatipu east to Frankton, then continues round the Kelvin Peninsula, about 15 to 16 kilometres in all, depending on the source, at grade 2. It passes cafes, the bridge over the lake’s outlet at Kawarau Falls, and the Kelvin Heights Sculpture Trail. Through 2026 the trust routes riders along the sealed footpath beside Frankton Road while works are done on the track; give way to walkers there, and walk the bike where it is busy. The ride to Jack’s Point beyond is a different matter: grade 4, with steep climbs and tight bends, and not one for beginners.

Arrowtown and the Arrow River

From the gold-rush town of Arrowtown the Arrow River Bridges ride runs about 14 to 16 kilometres, depending on the source, at grade 2 to the Kawarau Bridge, crossing the 80-metre Edgar Suspension Bridge on the way and finishing on country lanes after Morven Ferry Road. When we checked, the trust had closed it between Tobins Bridge and Whitechapel Road for repairs of “up to six weeks”, without saying when they began. Check the alerts before you go.

Gibbston and the wineries

From the Kawarau Bridge, where commercial bungy jumping began, the Gibbston River Trail runs about 9 kilometres at grade 2 along the river to the cellar doors of Gibbston. Published lengths range from 8.7 to 11 kilometres. Taken together, Queenstown to Gibbston is about 40 kilometres with several hills and remote stretches, so with a shuttle back, the Arrowtown end is the easier start. Our guide to wine tasting in Queenstown covers the cellar doors.

Lake Hayes and the Shotover

Lake Hayes has an 8-kilometre loop at grade 3, shared with walkers and dogs on leads; the bridge at its northern end was closed when we checked. The Twin Rivers Trail crosses the Shotover on the Old Lower Shotover Bridge, built in 1871. The Arrowtown–Lake Hayes loop, about 35 kilometres, strings Twin Rivers, the Arrow River and the Countryside sections together, with Thompsons Hill as its biggest climb; Destination Queenstown calls it best in autumn. The newest section, the Shotover Gorge, runs 6.8 kilometres at grade 3 through the Hugo Tunnel and over the Kimi-ākau bridge, with steep sections, tight corners and short stretches at grade 4.

Beyond the basin

The roads out of the basin are where we draw the line. The 45 kilometres of lakeshore road to Glenorchy, the Crown Range road to Wānaka and State Highway 6 through the Kawarau Gorge have no cycle path that we could find.

The gorge is about to change. The Kawarau Gorge Trail, 36 kilometres by the most common figure, will link Gibbston with Cromwell and the Lake Dunstan Trail. Central Otago’s tourism site gave 25 October 2026 for the opening of the Cromwell end only, and late 2026 for the whole trail; other pages on the same site give other dates. It is graded 2 to 3 but described as challenging, with about 800 metres of climbing and a remote middle section of 13 kilometres with no way out.

Six rides compared

Distances are from Ngā Haerenga New Zealand Cycle Trails, the Arrowtown loop’s from Destination Queenstown, and closures from the Queenstown Trails Trust, read 17 October 2026.

Making cycling work

Getting a bike, and getting it back

We found no public bike-share scheme, so you hire. Firms in Queenstown, Frankton, Arrowtown and Gibbston rent mountain bikes and e-bikes, and Tourism New Zealand names Arrowtown Bike Hire, Better By Bike, Charge About and Bikeaholic among them.

What changes the day is the shuttle. Several will meet you at the end of a one-way ride, such as Gibbston, Jack’s Point or the Queenstown golf course, or bring you from your accommodation to the start. The national body says shuttles do not run to a timetable and should be booked ahead, especially from December to April.

As one example, Better By Bike’s listing gives an e-bike day from Arrowtown to the Gibbston wineries, with the shuttle from Queenstown, at $195 for an adult and $155 for a child of 12 or under; the listing shows no date and no currency, presumably New Zealand dollars, so treat it as a guide. We name these firms because the tourism offices list them; we have not used any of them.

Bikes on the bus

Queenstown’s Orbus buses carry bikes free on racks at the front: two bikes a rack, with three racks on Queenstown buses, first come first served. E-bikes up to 25 kilograms are allowed, wheels must be between 16 and 29 inches, and you load the bike yourself; children’s bikes are at the driver’s discretion. Night use of the racks was banned from November 2024 and allowed again at all hours from 1 May 2025. Racks are subject to space, so check the route and timetable for your stop, and do not make a rack your only way home.

Choosing the bike

Take a mountain bike or an e-bike, which the national body recommends for the gravel; a road bike is the wrong tool here. An e-bike makes the longer loops realistic for most riders, but ask the hire firm for its battery range and where the shuttle can find you if it runs flat.

Finding your way, and the closures

The trust publishes a map of every section and a pocket map, and its home page carries the current closures and detours. When we checked there were three on the leisure rides: the Arrow River Bridges section, the north bridge at Lake Hayes and the Frankton Track detour. The trust also warned that rain can damage the trails, with mud, flooding and washouts. Check its alerts the morning you ride, not the week before.

The rules you must obey

Five rows are national rules, two are reported changes not yet confirmed, and the last is the trail’s own code. Our guide to cycling in New Zealand explains the national rules at more length.

The helmet and lights rows come from the NZ Transport Agency’s road code for cyclists, the footpath row from the Land Transport (Road User) Rule as our national guide sets it out, the e-bike limit from the 2013 Gazette notice, and the trail code from the Queenstown Trails Trust’s pocket map, read 17 October 2026.

What that means for a visitor: take the helmet the hire firm offers, and lights if you might be out at dusk. Ask the firm to confirm its e-bikes are within the limit. Two rows come from news reports rather than from the rules themselves: the change for children, who must have an older rider beside them, and the 1.5-metre passing gap. Both were announced for 1 October 2026, subject to the formal orders that bring them in, so check before relying on either.

On alcohol, since this is a wine ride: New Zealand’s drink-driving offence is written for anyone driving a motor vehicle, and an ordinary bicycle is not one. That is section 56 of the Land Transport Act 1998. We could not confirm how the law treats an e-bike, and an advocacy group reports that careless riding can still be charged; we have not confirmed that with the police. The law is not the main point, though. A gravel trail beside a fast river is no place to be unsteady, which is why the shuttle home exists.

Risk, recovery and the better alternative

When the trail meets the highway

The likeliest way to get into trouble is to leave the trail for the road, through a closure, a detour or a shortcut. Decide before you start where your sections join and where they do not, using the trust’s map. If a closure sends you towards State Highway 6, turn back or wait for the shuttle rather than ride it. A helmet or a bright jacket does not make a road with no shoulder suitable.

A flat battery, a puncture, or a missed shuttle

Ask the hire firm, before you leave, what it does if you puncture or the battery runs low, and save its number. Agree the shuttle’s pick-up point and time, and keep enough battery to reach it. The bus, which carries bikes when the rack has room, is a second option. In an emergency, call 111.

Weather and the seasons

Rain does damage, and the trust closes sections when it does. In winter it suggests riding in the afternoon, when the eastern side of Lake Hayes and the Queenstown to Arrowtown route get the sun; it publishes no guidance on ice, so expect frost in the shade on a winter morning. Destination Queenstown calls the Frankton Track rideable all year.

If cycling is not for you

Everything the trail shows you can be reached another way. The Frankton Track is as good on foot; our guide to walks and hikes in Queenstown has it. The bus runs to Arrowtown, and a tour or a shuttle reaches the Gibbston cellar doors with nobody needing to ride or drive. If the bike was the point of the day, our Queenstown planner builds days that suit you without one.

Where to ride next

Can I cycle in New Zealand?

The national picture: the roads, the law, and what kind of riding the country suits.

Best cycling routes in New Zealand

The Great Rides compared, from the Otago Central Rail Trail to the Queenstown Trail.

Mountain biking in Queenstown

The bike park, the gondola and the singletrack, graded trail by trail for real riders.