Adventure race start ‘harder than expected’

A group of racers from across the globe are battling themselves, the four seasons and a 470km long course in a daunting 16,000m all-up ascent this week.

The expedition race the MAGNIficent began in Lumsden on Sunday with 34 teams taking part in the inaugural event.

Race directors Andrew and Jason Magness created the event after the end of GodZone "left a big hole in the adventure racing culture of the country".

The 470km route was created to challenge the best teams and the fastest predicted travel time was 104 hours, Jason 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 packraft trek, a giant bike leg with a short — but huge-feeling — hike-a-bike that ends with perhaps the longest continuous singletrack 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 said the first day, on Sunday, already gave competitors a taste of the challenges as it was harder than expected for many of the teams because the weather was not as summery as it had been in the past couple of weeks.

"We had quite a bit of rain and sleet and so the initial bike ride was quite wet and muddy and then that rain continued and some of the teams actually had sleet and snow on the tops above Kingston and that’s pretty difficult, challenging terrain in the best of times.

"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."

Andrew said a team of more than 20 people were available as situations like these were common for adventure-racers.

He acknowledged it was not an event for everyone as it required a high degree of competence and good decision making.

"There’s a lot of risk involved ... Like the top teams that have the most experience are going to find rewarding and challenging but that they’re going to be able to manage the risks and the effort kind of in stride.

"The challenge is always with the newer teams that have less experience, either in the difficult terrain or just in terms of ... not quite as much fitness or navigation skill."

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.

However, what was exciting was the winner would win a place at the AR World Championship in Canada next September — and he believed it would be a Kiwi team.

"I think all of the top teams that have come in so far are all New Zealand teams, so this is a testament to the strength of New Zealand adventure racers.

"It’ll be exciting to get New Zealand representatives over to the World Champs again."