The expedition race, the Magnificent, started on Sunday in Lumsden with 34 teams taking part in the inaugural event.
Race directors Andrew and Jason Magness created the race after the end of GodZone which "left a big hole in the adventure-racing culture of the country".
The 470km route would challenge the best teams and the fastest predicted travel time was 104 hours, Jason Magness said.
"The stages are big and often multi-disciplined within a stage, requiring an old-school, self-supported expedition approach.
"There is a long, mountainous pack-raft trek, a giant bike leg with a short, but huge-feeling, hike-a-bike, that ends with perhaps the longest continuous single track descent in the sport’s history.
"The one thing that will be consistent in this event is the mind-blowing scenery and wilderness settings that the teams will move through."
Andrew Magness said the race was harder than expected for many of the teams because the weather was not as summery as it had been in the previous couple of weeks.
"We did have a couple of teams get lost, we had some teams backtrack, we had some teams kind of self-select on to a bit of an easier course option where they’re going to miss out on some of the points ... but they’re back on the move."
The race runs until Sunday, and he believed five to seven teams would get all the points available on the course, while a third would need to have assistance to the finishing line.
Until yesterday afternoon, teams Sardine Racing, Fear Youth and Nutrient Rescue were leading the race.
The winner would win a place at the AR World Championship in Canada next September — and he believed it would be a New Zealand team.
