New World — Central Otago, Queenstown, and the New Zealand ecosystem

Trail Journeys — the structural analogue, and it holds up

• URL: https://www.trailjourneys.co.nz/ · depots at Clyde, Middlemarch, Omarama
• Scale [VERIFIED]: describes itself as "the largest cycle operator on the
  trail" with a 400+ bike fleet.
• Bag transfer, exact prices [VERIFIED — /self-guided-services/luggage-transfers]:
  NZ$45.00 per movement (Central Otago), NZ$50.00 per movement (Alps 2
  Ocean) — priced per bag, not per person; 15 kg limit; bags left at
  accommodation by 9:00am; delivered 11:00am–4:00pm (Central Otago) or
  1:00pm–4:00pm (A2O); all items securely inside the bag; notify them of
  anything fragile. Included in self-guided packages, or bookable standalone
  subject to availability.
  [NOT FOUND] They do not disclose whether bags from unrelated customers
  share a vehicle — but the per-movement pricing and the 9am/4pm window strongly
  imply consolidated runs.
• The support promise, verbatim [VERIFIED]: "regular shuttles out along the
  trail every day during the season" and "should there be a problem during your
  ride you can relax knowing we are only a phone call away." Self-guided trips get
  "On call support throughout your journey"; guided trips get a support
  vehicle and "you can jump in the support vehicle at the next access point".
  This is the closest published NZ language to a roving shared vehicle — but it
  is a scheduled shuttle plus a phone number, not a circulating rescue van.
• Vehicle relocation, a real revenue line [VERIFIED]: Otago Central Rail Trail
  NZ$350.00, Clutha Gold NZ$500.00, A2O POA. Priced per vehicle; they
  caution that "relocation of rental vehicles may not be possible".
• Bike hire [VERIFIED]: "Prices for our bikes range between $40 (child's bike)
  and $230 (Dual Suspension Bikes)" — they refuse to publish a per-type rate
  card. Includes helmet, repair kit, rear carry bag or pannier. "E-bikes are
  subject to availability." [NOT FOUND] the e-bike day rate, multi-day rates,
  delivery-to-accommodation option.
• Packages: "Classic Otago Rail Trail Cycle in Comfort", 4 days, from
  NZ$1,290pp. Site-wide range NZ$105 (day tours) to NZ$5,090 (8 days).
• Season [VERIFIED]: "Most trips run from October to May. Winter trips, June
  to September, are available on request, and private tours can run year round."
• T&Cs — the hardest liability language in NZ [VERIFIED]: customers
  "unconditionally release, discharge and agree not to sue TJ" for negligent acts
  during supply of recreational services. Weather cancellations carry "no right
  of refund". Cancellation: 90+ days deposit only, 90–35 days 50% forfeit, under
  35 days 100% forfeit. "Medical and evacuation expenses will be your
  responsibility." No ACC clause, no alcohol clause.

The asymmetry repeats everywhere: the ride-in-the-van rescue is a guided-product
feature; self-guided customers get a phone number. The promise degrades from
"get in the van" to "call us" exactly at the point where the customer stops
paying for a guide.

And the pricing unit is the key detail: "per movement", not per person and not
per day. A five-hour delivery window and a hard 9am cut-off are what make
batching unrelated customers onto one vehicle possible. Customer flexibility is
what pays for the shared vehicle.

Bike It Now!

• URL: https://www.bikeitnow.co.nz/ · Clyde, Cromwell, Wanaka
• Self-guided 3-day rail trail [VERIFIED]: from NZ$500.00pp standard
  accommodation, from NZ$580.00pp superior; boutique/lodge POA. Optional Clyde
  night from $60pp (standard) / $80pp (superior). 4-day and 5-day products also
  listed; site range NZ$105–$820+pp, boutique from NZ$1,500pp. Single supplements
  apply (amount not published).
• Inclusions: "Door to door collection from Queenstown by one of our friendly
  team", bike hire with panniers and helmets, accommodation with breakfast, bike
  fitting, trail briefing, daily luggage transfers (15 kg per bag).
• Shared scheduled shuttle, exact times [VERIFIED]: "shuttles running everyday
  at 10am and 3.30pm from Clyde to Cromwell (10.30 and 4pm from Cromwell back to
  Clyde), these need to be pre-booked."
• Wine: only a Wine Appreciation class, $50pp, minimum 10 people, at The
  Clyde Bistro (bread and dips included). Not a cellar-door ride product.
• They publish no bike hire rate card at all — booking is an enquiry form with
  "confirmation within 24 hours". Notable: a large operator deliberately avoiding
  price transparency.
• T&Cs: risk-acknowledgement wording only; "Travel insurance is highly
  recommended for all customers, not just overseas customers"; damage invoiced
  beyond wear and tear; cancellation within 7 days = no refund. No alcohol
  clause, no ACC clause, no abandonment/recovery charge.
• Their sitemap contains a graveyard of dead pages — 2014/2015/2016 departure
  pages, "luxury…-old", "boutique…-old", and "Active Travel coming under the
  umbrella of Bike It Now" — evidence of at least one absorption and of repeated
  product-line churn.

Central Cycle Trail Co. (formerly Cycle Surgery Alexandra)

• URL: https://www.centralcycletrail.co.nz/
• Finding: cyclesurgery.co.nz 301-redirects here — Cycle Surgery Alexandra
  has been rebranded into or absorbed by Central Cycle Trail Co. Their story page
  says they "started with a fleet of bikes in a garage" and now run two depots.
  (The rebrand is inferred from the redirect; the site never mentions Cycle
  Surgery — flagged as partly inferred.)
• Day rates [VERIFIED — /bike-hire]: adult e-bike from $125/day; kids
  e-bike from $115/day; FOCUS Sam2 full-suspension from $170/day; Rail Trail 29er
  from $70/day; 27.5 comfort bike from $70/day; kids from $50/day. Add-ons
  ~$40–45/day (tag-a-long, kids trailer, WeeHoo, kids seat); kids tow rope $15/day.
  Bike insurance from $5 per day. Included: helmet, gel seat cover, puncture
  kit, pump, panniers, bottle cage, bell, front light, phone holder.
• Packages: Luxury 3–5 days from $1,500pp; Romantic 5 days/150 km
  Clyde–Middlemarch from $1,300pp; Adrenaline from $300pp; Corporate from $999pp;
  Winter Experience 3–5 days from $999pp — a rare explicit winter product.
• Wine product — Gibbston Valley Winery Loop: e-bike for the day, self-guided
  10–13 km loop from The Church Cellar Door, and "one bottle of wine per 3 pax"
  collected at the end. [NOT FOUND] price. FareHarbor booking.
• Tech: they publish a "CCT Ride Guide App" for navigation and support — the
  only operator-branded app found anywhere in this scan.

Around The Basin

• URL: https://www.aroundthebasin.co.nz/ · Queenstown (3 Searle Lane).
  Their server 403s direct fetches; content retrieved via the r.jina.ai proxy —
  still their own page content.
• "Bike The Wineries", full day, exact NZD [VERIFIED]: adult e-bike $165.00,
  adult standard $115.00, child (5–14) $90.00, child e-bike (8–14)
  $140.00, infant equipment $75.00, own bike $80.00.

⚠️ CORRECTED. That last line is important. At $80 for a rider bringing
their own bike, Around The Basin is effectively selling the shuttle and
logistics alone — the closest thing in the entire scan to an unbundled
"support-only" price point.

The $80 is a point-to-point coach fare, not a support-only price. What it buys
is the scheduled 9:30am run Queenstown→Arrowtown and the 4:30pm pickup from
Gibbston — roughly 25 km each way — plus route access. It includes no rescue, no
roving vehicle and no wine handling. The arithmetic confirms it: $115 − $80 =
$35, a plausible bike-hire rate, so the $80 is transport priced as transport.
Calling it an unbundled support benchmark imports a meaning the operator never
sells. See D-12 in the Audit of the New World research chapter.

Around The Basin also sells a Full Day "Meet Arrowtown" from $100 — the same
day without the outbound shuttle — which is a cleaner read on what they charge
for transport.

• Three-quarter day: same headline prices ($165 e-bike / $115 standard / $90 child).
• Fixed shared shuttle: summer check-in 9:20am, depart 9:30am, pickup 4:30pm
  from your final winery in Gibbston Valley; winter 9:50/10:00 departure, same
  4:30pm pickup. The 3/4-day product does not operate in winter. Weather: call
  45 minutes before departure.
• Excluded: wine tastings and meals, "typically $20–$40 per person"; advance
  booking required for groups of 6+; valid NZ driver licence or passport needed for
  tastings.
• Support [SECONDARY — reviews carried on their own site, not a published
  promise**]:** mobile assistance during rides with replacement bikes delivered
  within 15 minutes, and "flexible winery pickup". Treat the 15-minute figure as
  review-sourced, not contractual.

SheBikesHeBikes

• URL: https://www.shebikeshebikes.co.nz/ · Central Otago (Arrowtown-linked)
• Indicative package pricing [VERIFIED, operator labels it "indicative"]: 3-day
  ~NZ$495pp; 4-day ~NZ$730pp (most popular); 4-day luxury from NZ$1,000–1,150pp;
  5-day ~NZ$1,063pp; day trips ~NZ$60–85pp.
• Inclusions: bike hire, passenger transport in Mercedes Sprinters and Ford
  Transits, luggage transport (15 kg/day), free itinerary planning and booking,
  on-trail support. Premium e-bikes with 630 Wh batteries and auto-shifting.
• No wine tour products. [NOT FOUND] e-bike surcharge, single supplement.

Off Road Adventures

• URL: https://www.offroad.co.nz/ · Queenstown, 35 years. Not a wine
  operator — quads, dirt bikes, buggies, 4WD, eMTB hire. FareHarbor. Rule it out
  of the comparable set.

Bike Gibbston / Revolution Tours / Cycle Central Otago

No first-party sites found; searches returned only paid Viator/TripAdvisor ads for
these names. Cannot confirm these operate as independent businesses.

NZ ecosystem, shared-cost and regulatory findings

The Otago Central Rail Trail is free to ride. Managed by DOC in partnership
with the Otago Central Rail Trail Charitable Trust (est. 1994). The Trust funds
itself from "grant funds, donations, bequests, sale of advertising and
merchandise including the very popular Otago Central Rail Trail Passport".
There is no user charge, no trail-pass gate, and no operator levy.
[VERIFIED — otagocentralrailtrail.co.nz**]**

So the "trail pass covering shuttle/rescue across many customers" model does
not exist on New Zealand's flagship rail trail. The Passport is a souvenir,
not a service pass. This is a meaningful negative finding for anyone hoping to
fund a shared van through a trail levy.

Operator co-op: the Otago Central Rail Trail Business Network
(https://www.ocrtbusiness.nz), formed 2012 as Rail Trail Operators Inc. It does
stakeholder representation, council liaison, networking and member promotion.
[NOT FOUND] membership fees, member count, any shared services. It is a
networking body, not a shared-operations co-op — no pooled van, no shared rescue.

Adventure Activities regulation [VERIFIED — worksafe.govt.nz**]:** an operator
must pass a safety audit and register if the activity is (a) for payment,
(b) "involves guiding, teaching or assisting participants", (c) has a
recreational/educational purpose, and (d) "requires the operator to actively
manage a serious risk". A pure bike-hire business with no guiding, on flat
roads, most likely falls outside this — consistent with none of the NZ hire
operators mentioning registration. Certification bodies include AdventureMark
(200+ operators).

A genuine cost/complexity fork: adding a guide drags you into a regime that
self-guided hire avoids. Note also that limb (b) says "guiding, teaching or
assisting" — a rescue van is arguably "assisting". That is where a support
van pulls a hire business toward the regulated side of the line.

Drink-cycling law in NZ [SECONDARY]: multiple secondary sources state it is
not an offence to ride a bicycle while intoxicated in New Zealand — drink-driving
provisions apply to motor vehicles only, "unless it has a motor". This could
not be verified on NZTA or legislation.govt.nz. The motor caveat is potentially
significant for an e-bike fleet and needs a primary legal check. Helmets are
compulsory (confirmed via On Yer Bike's FAQ).

ACC: no NZ operator's T&Cs treat ACC as a liability shield. The only ACC
reference found is On Yer Bike telling overseas visitors they "must have full
insurance due to limited ACC cover". Trail Journeys explicitly pushes evacuation
costs to the customer. Operators rely on waivers plus "buy travel insurance",
not on ACC.

Seasonality: