Signing up the forest and trees

Visiting mountain bikers to the Whakarewarewa Forest should have no reason to get lost - a new signs project is reaching overdrive.

The Rotorua Mountain Bike Club is erecting around 300 new signs across the trail network with information aimed at improving every rider's experience.

The signs have been sponsored by Pak 'n Save Rotorua in association with Anchor with $15,000 available now and then a further $5000 a year for five years to maintain the signs and trails.

"I'm a mountain biker and it's an opportunity to put something back into mountain biking," said Pak 'n Save Rotorua owner Neil Foster.

"There's been a big push to improve the trails and it makes sense to do the signs as well."

The project has taken more than six months as the club decided what information it wanted on the signs and what colour they should be. The signs, which are made from an aluminium composite, feature an internationally recognised grading system. There are four different varieties of sign - entrance, exit, directional arrows and track continuation. They have been designed by Katrin Gellatly, made by Signcraft and Permapine have provided the posts.

Elite New Zealand mountainbiker Dirk Peters is now working in the forest to make sure the signs are seen. He heads off to South Africa for the Mountain Bike World Championships in about a month and he hopes to have them all up by then.

The project has been driven by club committee member Simone McGregor who said the signs were much needed now Rotorua was being visited by more out-of-towners. "There are new tracks in the forest and the amount of people visiting from out of town to ride them has meant this big upgrade as we need to make sure people don't get lost or go the wrong way."