The rider completed the 391km ride, which includes over 7500m of vertical ascent, in 21hr 39min 14sec, beating the previous fastest known time set by American professional cyclist Payson McElveen in December 2025 by 1hr 57min.
In an Instagram post from the finish of the Heaphy Track with a pie in hand, Shaw described himself as "stoked as" to have taken the record, having grown extremely tired at around 9am and beginning a four-hour mental battle to get to the end.
Shaw set off from the trailhead of the 55km Paparoa Track at just after 3pm on Thursday , completing the trail in just over four hours.
At just after 10.30pm, Shaw began the Old Ghost Road, riding the entire 85km route in darkness and completing the trail at 3.47am before beginning the 73km road ride to the trailhead of the Heaphy Track.
Shaw entered the Heaphy Track at daybreak, and exited just after 12.40pm with the record in his back pocket.
Shaw’s effort was a logistical high-wire act with regulations of the two Great Walks on the route dictating his direction of travel and start time.
The Department of Conservation webpages for both 55km Paparoa Track and the 78km Heaphy Track said that night riding on the tracks was prohibited to protect nocturnal species on the trails, with mountain bikes prohibited on the Heaphy Track until the May 1, nine hours after Shaw’s ride started.
Completing the ride as fast as possible would involve riding the Paparoa Track in an afternoon, before completing the Old Ghost Road and road transfers through the night in order to arrive at the Heaphy Track for daybreak as the trail opened for bikes for the winter season.
In the world of ultra-endurance sport, the term for a record such as Shaw’s is known as a "fastest known time" or FKT, which aims to recognise pioneering achievements while accepting that athletes in the age before GPS tracking may have been faster.
Before Shaw, the only rider known to have completed the ride in one push was the American professional rider Payson McElveen, who took 23hr 35min to cover the route about November 2025.
While McElveen is a full-time professional athlete who spent time on the West Coast doing reconnaissance runs of the tracks and allowing for the selection of the ideal weather window, Shaw, 35, is a full-time apprentice builder in Wānaka with a family.
Armed with support from his sponsors and juggling work and family life, Shaw had to pick a day and stick with it.
Shaw’s West Coast traverse is the latest in a series of endurance feats this year.
In December, Shaw set a new FKT for a ride from Auckland to Wellington, with his time of 17hr 21min beating the marker laid down by the Australian professional cyclist Lachlan Morton in February 2025 by over an hour.
Shaw took victory at the comeback edition of the Lake Hāwea Epic in March, as well as at the Mackenzie Drover at Lake Tekapo in April.
