Quad bike course basics for your first ride

Nobody expects you to arrive knowing how to ride. Quad tours near Queenstown open with its own quad bike course, short and practical, before anyone heads for the hills. On the site's tour you get a full safety briefing and training first, and the guides need to see you ride safely before you leave for the trails.¹ At the Gorge Road course of a second operator, the session starts in a purpose-built riding area and only then moves onto the off-road tracks.⁷

It helps to know what the course is and what it is not. WorkSafe says formal farm vehicle courses run in most parts of New Zealand and are the best way to learn safe technique.⁸ A tour briefing is much shorter. It teaches you enough to follow a guide on tracks chosen for your level, and it is a test as well as a lesson. Think of it as a driving lesson on a quiet car park before the open road.

For quad bike riding in Queenstown, that test is real. Nomad Safaris, which runs the site's tour, says a rider who cannot demonstrate safe handling, or cannot follow the guides in English, will not continue on the quad.⁹ It is not meant to scare you. A rider who struggles is offered another way to see the hill rather than being sent home empty-handed.

Most new riders sit on a quad as they would sit in a car, and that is the habit the course works to break. WorkSafe calls the right approach active riding: you control the bike partly by moving your body weight.²³ Researchers writing in the Social Policy Journal add that this takes enough height, weight, judgement and dexterity, which is one reason age and size limits exist.²⁴

Start with your arms. WorkSafe advises keeping the elbows away from the body for strength and the arms bent to absorb shocks.² Stiff, straight arms pass every bump into your shoulders and make the handlebars twitch. Loose arms let the quad move under you while your head stays steady, and that is what makes a rough track feel smooth.

Turns and slopes follow simple rules. At low speed you move your weight to the outside of a corner; at higher speed, to the inside; going straight up a slope, you lean forward.³ Riding across a slope, keep your weight on the uphill side and steer around bumps and hollows that could tip it downhill.⁴ The guide will demonstrate each one, and the first time you feel the quad settle when you lean, it clicks.

A guided quad ride moves like a short convoy. The guide leads, everyone follows in single file, and the gap between machines is yours to keep. The Gorge Road operator caps its groups at no more than 6 machines per guide.⁵ It also says riders are never pushed to do anything that feels unsafe or beyond them.²⁸ Speak up when you need a breather.

WorkSafe's advice on attention applies on every tour. It says to keep your eyes on where you are going and to stop if you want to look at something else.²⁶ The views above Queenstown make that harder than it sounds. Wait for the photo stops, where the guide pulls the line over, and take your pictures with both feet on the ground and the quad parked.

Respect the farm around you as well. The site's tour runs on a working sheep station, and the operator's risk notice includes livestock and wildlife that may act unpredictably.^19,29 Slow down near animals, never chase them, and leave gates as the guide leaves them. A calm line of quads passes stock with barely a glance; a fast one can cause trouble for the farmer long after you have gone.