Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Cycling New Zealand (Lonely Planet Cycling Guides)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As a big fan of cycle-touring and Lonely Planet guide books, I was quite excited to find the LP Cycling New Zealand book. I'm leaving on a 2 month cycle-tour throughout New Zealand soon, and figured this book would be all I'd need guidewise. Structured the same as regular LP guides, it gives all the basic info for New Zealand, including cycling specific info wherever it fits. The sections on taking your bike on trains and busses within New Zealand was especially helpful.

The routes however, were a bit disappointing. While each individual route is well laid out, almost none of the routes are connected. If your plan was to cycle the North Island from Auckland down to the Southern tip of the island, it would be impossible to follow the routes highlighted in the book. Also missing is an overview map showing all the routes. On the positive side, each route description is well done, including distance/navigation info, elevation profiles, accomodation, and sightseeing info.

If you are looking to do a series of shorter tours, I would recommend this book. If your goal is an extended tour covering long distances, Bruce Ringer's "New Zealand By Bike" book is a better choice.

I've bicycle toured solo in Ireland, Britain, France, Germany, Austria and New Zealand. I've yet to see a cycling guide to a country that is worth taking along, and this book is worse than most, because of the "loop" configuration of the rides, and the confusing maps (look hard to see which way is north!). In my travel journal, I made a reference to the "nearly useless" LP Cycling Guide.

My recommendation for any country is to take a look at the general information overview in any cycling guide, make notes of any peculiarities of that country (ie, NZ requires all cyclists to wear a helmet. You cannot leave the airport on your bike until you've purchased a helmet at the airport shop), then buy the GENERAL (not cycling-specific) tourist guide that suits your style. I used the Rough Guide New Zealand (best maps and budget accommodation info; I don't camp), after rejecting the Lonely Planet guide. In Europe the best has consistently been Let's Go, with Rick Steves' being an excellent series for inside information (even though his hand-drawn maps are mediocre, his inside info is excellent.)

Buy maps when you get there. You'll find great maps ("Kiwi Maps"(?) spiral-bound booklet) in service stations in the countries you go to. When you can look them over in the country they were made for, you'll find they're cheaper, and you can then assess exactly what suits you. You can generally go to Tourist Information in the airport for good information on where to go first, then buy a map when you're situated.

I had high hopes for this guide when I lugged it along, but after a couple of outdated references to gravel roads (that didn't materialize), and weird warnings about dangerous roads (that weren't) I gave up on it early on. Kiwis are the friendliest ("toot-toot") drivers I've come across, the roads are better than most in the U.S., and get up and go--it's a dream for scenery, and if you've never travelled abroad, there is NO culture shock (It's got a strong Colorado vibe)!

I bet if the people who rated this book highly were polled as to what year they utilized its guidance there would be a direct correlation to how close they were to the release of this only edition...hint hint Lonely Planet editors...UPDATE THIS BOOK!

I don't know where to begin but who in the world rides loops when they are bicycle touring. While I admit that the Southern Alps loop was pretty cool I couldn't overlook the out of date information and sometimes inaccurate terrain profiles in this book. I quicky learned not to rely too heavily on this book and transitioned over to the, much lighter, Pedaller's Paradise. That wafer thin book of goodness in conjunction with the NZ AA maps (which are free to anyone who has an Autoclub memmbership) were much more informative and enjoyable. I am not sure if Amazon carries that book but you can easily search for "pedaller's paradise."

Lastly, I took a Lonely Planet New Zealand guide book as well and found that not worth its brick-like weight in my pannier. I found the New Zealand Tourist Information centers and the people who staff them much more informative and much more fun to engage. The first thing I usually did when rolling into towns was to b-line directly for the Tourist Information.

One more thing...if you like to mountain bike as well pick up the Kennett Brother's book, Classic New Zealand Mountain Bike Rides, by searching for "kennett bros classic."

I must disagree with bikermitch's review below and must defend this fine guide with five stars.

Lonely Planet's NZ cycling guide is geared to cyclists throughout, so much so that if you had to carry only one guidebook in your panniers, this could be it. There are clear maps for every ride (with the route highlighted in blue). And the rides can easily be pieced together to just about circumnavigate the entire country, north and south islands. So Lonely Planet's guide is useful for those planning mostly paved road tours lasting from a few days to a couple of months.

I agree that New Zealand By Bike is also a must, but if you are going all the way to Kiwi Land (or on any major trip), buying, studying, comparing and cross-referencing two or three guidebooks is the way to go.

As for the Lonely Planet guide, I especially appreciate the authors' list of New Zealand's cycling superlatives, such as Most Challenging Climb, Best Downhill, Best Seacoast Ride, Best Scenery, etc. - and the list of where to ride if you have one week, two weeks, even a month or two. This guide is not an amateurish, small press attempt at being thorough yet concise. It consistently sets a professional, honest, experienced, authoritative and enjoyably wry tone. This book is worth every penny - and every ounce. I predict it'll be the one cycling guide you actually carry along.

First off, you should by the Pedaller's Paradise instead of Lonely Planet. It can be found for about 12 NZD in New Zealand (but is also available through Amazon for a bit more if you can't wait).

Dangerous - The profiles (ie. graphical descriptions of hills) shown in the Lonely Planet Guide are drastically over-simplified. On a good day, this is only just very annoying. On a bad day, it could mean being out in the cold wondering just how many more hills are before the next stop. It is obvious that the writers did not use bicycles to research the routes. Nor did they use GPS or any other precise means of measuring elevation. They were very lazy about how they threw this guide together, and it will get you into trouble. Avoid it!

Buy the Pedallar's Paradise instead - it is a fraction the size, half the cost, and packed with useful information.

Just finished a 9-day tour of New Zealand's Northland, using the route recommended by this LP guidebook.

Like the rest of the LP series, this book has a wealth of useful information on both the trips and how to prepare for them.

The best part of the book is the information design:

- Narratives are brief, important items are called out or bolded, and sections are kept small, making things easy to find in a hurry. Contrast this with other guidebooks that present you with a wall of text to hunt through for a phone number.

- Maps are very clear, showing the route, landmarks along the way, optional side trips, and nothing else to clutter the view. Cue sheets make it easy to find the next waypoint or climb. Much better than the handdrawn sketches in Bruce Ringer's book.

- The elevation charts, while not as accurate as those in Pedaller's Paradise, seemed good enough to me, and easier to understand at a glance.

The book, though published in 2000, is still reasonably up to date. A few businesses and prices had changed, but nothing drastic.

I bought both this book and Bruce Ringer's New Zealand By Bike, and after reading both cover to cover, I took the LP book by itself and found it indispensible during the trip.

My wife and I went to New Zealand on Nov 2000 and used this book along with the regular LP New Zealand book. The description of the rides and maps are very accurate. We had purchased New Zealand by Bike by Bruce Ringer but decided to take this one instead. This one fits our needs better as we take 3 week touring vacations every year and there is just so much you can ride and see in that time. Buy and carry this book with you, it offers all you expect from a LP guide.

Now stop wasting your time reading this and go tour New Zealand.

The book is really good and well worth the money.New Zealand is a wonder to cycle thru, like Yosmite Valley on a nation scale. But be fore warned! Amazingly, the New Zealand roads are anti-cycle,and you put yourself there at your own risk. 99% of the roads are single lane on each side, they are very skinny lanes. Designed for small cars. Full sized transport semis use these roads with a clearance of inches on each side of their lane. .The roads twist and wind like mountain roads do. There are very few straight stretches of road as you may see in the US. There are no bike lanes,few passing lanes, and no emergency lanes,you are in the path with traffic. Kiwis know their roads and consistently drive fast, 100-120kmph. The problem you are going to have over and over is cycling thru all this beauty in the same lane as cars and trucks...they barrel around a blind curve at 65mph only to find you in front of their windshield going 15mph and no safety margin for anyone. On my recent trip there, I can't tell you how many times I saw this scenario played out and how many near misses I witnessed. Local drivers, particularly commercial tdrivers have real contempt for cyclists. Get the book and dream, but I think I'd look into renting a convertible and live to cycle another day.