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Tuhua Mutu, and a group of mountain bikers (Image: Mountain Bike Rotorua, Clint Trahan; additional design: Tina Tiller)
Tuhua Mutu, and a group of mountain bikers (Image: Mountain Bike Rotorua, Clint Trahan; additional design: Tina Tiller)

PartnersMay 13, 2022

Home Screen: How technology helped a mountain bike business stay on track

Tuhua Mutu, and a group of mountain bikers (Image: Mountain Bike Rotorua, Clint Trahan; additional design: Tina Tiller)
Tuhua Mutu, and a group of mountain bikers (Image: Mountain Bike Rotorua, Clint Trahan; additional design: Tina Tiller)

Rotorua is a world class destination for mountain bikers. But setting up a biking business in the middle of the forest was more difficult than Tuhua Mutu realised.

Tuhua Mutu (Ngāti Pikiao) believes in putting people first. The co-owner of Mountain Bike Rotorua, an adventure tourism company nestled in the iconic redwoods of Whakarewarewa Forest, first got into the adrenaline junkie space over his desire to share adventures with others. 

“I love meeting people and taking them through experiences,” he says. “It was about going through these experiences with fresh people everyday and realising ‘hey, people are cool. I want to know more about these people’.”

It was this love of people that led Mutu into a social sciences course at university, and after a few brief diversions into other industries, what drew him back to doing what he loved. “The opportunity came to launch something new in the mountain biking space in Rotorua,” he says. He launched Mountain Bike Rotorua alongside his brother Takurua, and the pair are now co-owners of the business. 

That ethos of putting people first is fully ingrained in Mountain Bike Rotorua. The business prides itself on sharing “the Māori beliefs of manaakitanga (caring for those around us), kaitiakitanga (protecting our planet and people) and whanaungatanga (creating lasting relationships with those we bring into our lives)”.

A mountain biker at Mountain Bike Rotorua (Photo: Clint Trahan)

Mutu says Rotorua is a world class tourism destination, and mountain biking is one of its premium offerings. People travel from around the world to ride the trails of the Whakarewarewa Forest. 

But building a new business in the middle of a forest wasn’t exactly easy. “When we set up, there were not a lot of services,” Mutu explains. It wasn’t just the lack of electricity – Mutu said the business initially relied on a generator – there was also the problem of phone coverage. If someone was injured or needed help when out on a bike trail, being able to get help quickly was key. Mutu says Vodafone came to the party straight away. “In 2011, smartphones were in their infancy, 3G was ‘wing and a prayer-ing it’ around the country, 4G wasn’t a thing yet. We were in the forest, we thought ‘we’re not sure how we’re going to make this work’.” 

Even a week from launching, Mutu remembers thinking: “I don’t think these services are going to be ready.” With help from their Vodafone service manager, the team managed to get all their online equipment ready just in time for the opening – equipment crucial to the safety of the park’s guests.

When Mountain Bike Rotorua first launched, Mutu was its sole permanent staff member. “I had to make sure my phone was fully charged to be able to have any sort of internet and be able to email,” he says. “We had an 0800 number set up that would always come to my phone, but we were running off a generator for the first three months. It was quite a lot to go from that to what we have now. Now we have four different locations around the forest.” 

Biking through Whakarewarewa Forest (Image: Mountain Bike Rotorua)

Service reliability is paramount for the health and safety requirements of an adventure business situated in the forest, so Mutu tested all the available providers to find the best for their unique location. That coverage has proved integral to the operation running smoothly. “Speed is one thing, but consistency is more valuable to us,” he explains. 

Since 2016, a “first response unit” of trained medics has operated a round-the-clock service in the forest, a bit like a land-based surf lifesaving operation. “Vodafone were there at the inception of that,” says Mutu. “What it required was stable, reliable service to make it happen. So that if people rang the special number they knew that someone would be on the other end and help them when they’re in need.”

Mountain Bike Rotorua has now gone from a one-staff, 30-bike operation to having dozens of full-time employees and around 200 bikes. Mutu says this could never have happened without the power of technology and good cell service and access to a strong internet connection. “Without those stable first few months and years, it’d be a cascading failure story rather than one of exponential growth.”

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PartnersMay 12, 2022

The Far North iwi making kaitiakitanga a cross-generational project

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In this story from the Electric Highway, Don Rowe heads to the Far North to learn how Ngāti Kuri are keeping an eye on the future.

It’s a long way to the top, and nowhere is that more true than here in Aotearoa. For most of my life I had a mental image of the upper North Island as Auckland, Waipu, Whangarei and then… something. But having spent a little more time in the Far North, it really is an astoundingly vast region and every bit as beautiful as the mountainous south. And incredibly, just 20km from the tip of the country, the ChargeNet network has EV drivers covered at Te Hāpua.

For the past two summers, Ngāti Kuri has taken over management of the area. From the campground at Kapowairua, to the dunes at Te Paki, to the sacred Te Rerenga Wairua, Ngāti Kuri’s kaitiaki manaaki the thousands of manuhiri who journey to the place where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. They look like rangers in their utes and khaki, but the hospitality is taken very seriously.


This story from the Electric Highway is brought to you by BMW i, pioneering the new era of electric vehicles. Keep an eye out for new chapters in Don’s journey each week, and to learn more about the style, power and sustainability of the all-electric BMW i model range, visit bmw.co.nz or click here.


For Reg Lelievre (Ngāti Kuri), who returned home to help manage the campgrounds in 2019, going back to the whenua was a revelation. “I never, ever thought I would come back here. I was a city boy hard, living in Auckland and loving the dollars. Now I just can’t believe I was so stupid.”

The campgrounds help fund Ngāti Kuri’s conservation work in the Far North. The area is rich in endemic species and a partnership with Auckland Museum means scientists and botanists are regular guests in the rohe. 

“There’s stuff up here that you just don’t see. And so they’re very keen, as are we, to make sure those taonga are retained and don’t get lost – or eaten. They all need special attention, which is what this is all about. These endemic species in the Far North are taonga that we are really keen on looking after, to make sure that they don’t disappear.”

Ngāti Kuri also brings in tamariki from kura across the rohe to learn about conservation, water quality and the local ecology, laying the groundwork for the next generation of kaitiaki. “It’s all about the kids, they are the future. We’re gearing them up and getting them onboard before it’s too late for the lot of us,” says Lelievre.

“And these kids know the area, they hunt here, they were brought up here and they know the place like the back of their hand. They don’t need to be DOC rangers, they already know where these key places are, they just need the funding and tools to do the job. They’re perfect for it, who can look after a place better than your own people?” 

The legendary sand dunes at Te Paki (Photo: Don Rowe)

In te ao Māori, Cape Reinga/Te Rerenga Wairua marks the place where Māori spirits descend into the underworld along the roots of an ancient pōhutukawa. They emerge at the Three Kings Islands, looking back from Ohaua, before returning to their tupuna in Hawaiiki-A-Nui. The place is silent but for the roaring of the wind and the waves. Out to sea, the huge tidal forces create whirlpools and rapids. 

New Zealand’s trail, Te Araroa, starts here. And for some unprepared hikers it ends here too, on the endless stretches of sand. Kaitiaki from Ngāti Kuri sometimes find them, I’m told, burned and dehydrated, victims of the merciless heat and sun. There’s not much phone reception and the whenua retains an element of the frontier, that special sense of timelessness you find in places like the East Cape. 

With the BMW iX parked up at Te Paki, I set off to climb up the famous dunes of golden sand. And up, and up, and up. Size and distance seem to lose meaning there, the true scale of the place distorted like the mirages which hover above the ground. Operators in the area rent boogie boards for tourists to slide down on. I borrowed one and, being mindful not to “scorpion” my way to a broken neck, zipped down the tallest dune I could find. The exhilaration was equalled only by my despair at then having to walk the board back up to its owner, waiting at the top.  

I’d bought a fishing rod on the drive north. I’ve never been much of a fisherman, something I’ve always chalked up to a lack of patience and ignoring all the sage wisdom like “it’s not about catching fish”. But it certainly felt like it was about catching fish at Kapowairua, as schools of kahawai swam back and forward just metres off the rocks, oblivious to – or disgusted by – my offerings. It’s one thing to plumb the depths, waiting for the sweet rush of a bite, oblivious as to what lurks beneath. It’s another kind of hell entirely to see the fish in their hundreds, taunting you with every shimmering scale. 

And then, ecstasy. The line went taut and the fight began. Man versus fish. It had to be huge, a leviathan, some primordial beast. I slipped about in my Birkenstocks, tripping over half-frozen bait and narrowly avoiding the $2 kitchen knife and chopping board containing my tackle. On the same beach where Celebrity Treasure Island was filmed, I felt like Chris Parker, only without the talent or charisma. Was it a record-breaker? Maybe not, it was a reasonably juvenile looking thing. But it was mine. 

The campground at Kapowairua (Spirits Bay). (Photo: iTravelNZ)

I took it back to camp, where Ngāti Kuri’s kaitiaki live during their shifts in a compound of portacoms and big canvas tents. 

“Tangaroa was good to you, my bro,” Lelievre said “This fulla has been persistent, I’ll give him that.” 

Lelievre taught me how to fillet, and then wrapped the fish in newspaper – it wasn’t much of a contribution, a bit of manky kahawai in a bounty of crayfish, smoked mullet and wild beef the kaitiaki had prepared. We spoke deep into the night about the history of the area, about the tupuna interred on the hill and the spirits the locals say frequent the empty beaches at night.

The Far North is the kind of place that stays with you, a place where manaakitanga is still a way of life. Kapowairua is an appropriate name – the whenua is thick with wairua. And so while I drove south in the iX, with my kahawai on ice in the back, I took more with me than fish.

“You leave knowing what we’re all about,” Lelievre told me later. “It’s very cool. It’s very empowering.”

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