The Pioneer - 7 Day Stage Race in New Zealand

Minter (Warthog) and I have just finished the inaugural Pioneer MTB race in New Zealand. The race is a seven day mountain bike stage race through New Zealand’s Southern Alps starting in Christchurch and ending in Queenstown. http://thepioneer.co.nz/ The scenery and location must be largely unparalleled anywhere in the world where you can race. Jaw droppingly spectacular!!

We were racing in the Masters 40+ category and went into it really not knowing what the competition would be like given the international field. What we did know is that there were some strong teams coming out from Australia, including Mike Faretta (Blades_Utd) and Wayne Dickinson (Dicko) as well as Gary James and Mike Israel. These are all very competitive teams.

The week was brutal! It was not fun, but was a test of endurance and commitment to one’s team mate and to mental toughness. Minter is clearly the stronger rider by a fair way, so while he was admiring the view, getting a tan, and feasting at the water stations, I was in the hurt box for 7 days….not allowed to stop at the water stations and consistently being told to dig deep and push harder (as if I had been stopping to take photo’s while sipping a Pina Colada). One of the other teams made the comment that if he was in my position he would have punched Minter . Fortunately, Minter and I have been riding together for years, raced as a team at Joberg2C (9 day stage race in South Africa), and are like an old married couple (I just ignore him while nodding my head while he talks).

On the plus side, by the end of day 2, we were in the leader’s jersey for the Masters 40+ category, a position we managed to hold until the end of the race. We managed to win 3 stages (day 3, 4 and 6) and take the overall win in our old men’s category and place 6th overall, a good achievement given that first place went to the Olympian duo of Dan McConnell and Anton Cooper, followed by the Kona A and Kona B teams out of the USA and Canada, as well as a mixed team featuring Kate Fluker, another NZ Olympian who climbs like a mountain goat on steroids…...very humbling company.

Mike and Dicko had their race end on day 3 when Dicko fell and had to get helicoptered off the mountain and taken to Queenstown hospital. He returned the next day, sling and all. A great pity after all the hard work and training  A big kudos to Mike who finished the race without Dicko, despite having also crashed on day 4 and being covered in scratches, scrapes and bruises.
One of the things that stood out at the race was how supportive and just plain great people were. I won’t forget day 4 coming towards the finish for the stage win and having Dicko running beside me with one arm in the sling screaming and shouting encouragement like a nutter (may have been the pain killers….don’t mix them with alcohol). Another example was after day 5 when after a brutal 7 hours in the saddle (112km and nearly 4,000m of climbing ….into a strong headwind) I just collapsed into bed….broken. I woke up to find that Dicko had (single-handedly….pun intended) cleaned and lubed my bike while Nathan and Pete from Northside Cyclery had checked my bike over, sorted out a rubbing rear brake etc. What a top notch bunch of blokes!!

With respect to equipment, I rode my Specialized Epic and Minter was on his Cannondale Scalpel. Both were perfect bikes for the race.

I have had terrible luck over the past year or so with punctures and sidewall cuts (Convict, Highland Fling, general Sydney trails) and have been running Schwalbe and Maxxis with sidewall protection (not the super-light versions). We decided that we needed to find a safer alternative and a read of a Flow magazine article on the website led us to try out the Mitas Scylla tyres with TEXTRA sidewalls on which they offer a 100 day sidewall guarantee. http://flowmountainbike.com/tests/flows-first-bi... This appealed to us as they clearly have a lot of faith in the technology and the guarantee is straight forward – if your Textra tyre gets slashed in normal riding conditions, you’re covered. I have thrown away a lot of money on tyres so this makes sense for me. Anyway, after using them for the race, I am a convert and so is Minter (as evidenced by the fact that he is trying to sell his stock of Racing Ralph’s http://nobmob.com/node/53071 For anyone who is interested, we ordered the tyres from the Mitas website and they were delivered within 2 days. Nice! Minter is also using the more aggressive tyre (the Kratos) on his Stumpjumper, but I recon it would make a great front tyre for the Sydney trails with the Scylla as a rear tyre.

If you are looking for a challenge then I would recommend The Pioneer, with one warning….if you ride a 1x11 then take a 30t chainring.