Mt Owen, bike+scramble. Followed Vern's description initially: "simply bike 12kms up a road, turn left and go up and up and up a gully on a huge avalanche path." Biked 12.3km (measured the same on 3 different GPS devices)... and ended up almost 2k past his transition point.
Worked out better as gained the ridge sooner which was much more enjoyable comparing to the avi path.
On the way in, wandered a bit after a transition off the bike, had quite a bit of bushwhacking and log hopping. Way out was much better. A rule of thumb there should be: if you haven't found the avi path within 200-250m horizontal and less than 50m gain, then you're off route.
Bike out had non-advertised 120m gain :(