Shaw dominated the event, winning the gravel bike classification by 90 minutes and finishing more than 26 minutes ahead of the fastest mountain bike rider, Joshua Haggerty.
The race started at 6am on a dark Saturday morning in the heart of the Mackenzie District.
The figure-eight race route, started and finished in Lake Tekapo, with riders first taking on a 70km loop skirting Lake Pukaki, before a circumnavigation of Lake Tekapo.
However, high water levels in the Godley River at the north of Lake Tekapo led race organisers to engage plan B, with the circumnavigation replaced by an out and back along its eastern shore cutting 7km from the total distance.
Shaw rode the first 60km with Haggerty, before dropping him on the long climb from Lake Pukaki to Lake Tekapo.
As he built his lead, he was able to let the landscape sink in.
‘‘It was a perfect morning to be out riding the canals towards Pukaki and then up toward Mount Cook.
‘‘We rode back into Tekapo into the sunrise and then out onto the bluffs at the head of the Godley River.
‘‘It’s honestly up there with one of the best races I’ve done,’’ Shaw said.
The Mackenzie Drover has classifications for mountain bikes and gravel bikes — road bikes with chunky tyres — with riders in both classifications taking on the same course.
For Shaw, who won the Lake Hāwea Epic in March — a circumnavigation of the lake shortened due to high river levels — there was a strong sense of deja vu as he made the turn at the top of Lake Tekapo and headed back for the finish line, cheered on by his fellow competitors.
The win caps an incredible season for the Wānaka rider, who set the record for riding from Auckland to Wellington in December with a time of 17hr 24min 34sec.
