Two of New Zealand's elite cross country riders, Marcus Roy, of Invercargill, and Kashi Leuchs, of Dunedin, won the inaugural Alpine Epic with a commanding performance. Played out over four days, five stages and 241km of backcountry between Mt Somers and Lake Tekapo, the South Canterbury event was dominated by Team RoadCraft's Roy and Leuchs with the pair winning four out of the five stages in a time of 13:27:47.
Team RoadCraft finished 12:27 ahead of their nearest rival, the Team Giant R&R Sport duo of Scott Wilder and Mark Williams. The final stage was won by Team Giant R&R Sport after a 74km-long battle with the riders of the third-placed Alpinexus team, Nic Smith and Neil Sutherland.
Sixty teams of two took on the challenge with riders from throughout New Zealand and international competitors from the UK, Czech Republic, Switzerland and America. In the end, Roy and Leuchs, both international cross country racing specialists, adapted quickly to the longer and more gruelling race format of New Zealand's first multi-day adventure mountain bike race.
"It feels great to win the inaugural event, but for me the highlight was the people who came along: the riders, the volunteers and the crew. We get to spend day after day with each other and get to know each other and it's like a big family by the end," three-time Olympian Leuchs said.
"I've never done team stage racing before," Roy said. "It's quite a different dynamic, and I wasn't used to that. You couldn't just sneak away from the other teams when you had a chance. You had to work as a team and it was a lot more obvious if you made a break. I found that challenge to be a lot of fun."
With several high-country passes nearing 1500m in altitude, the terrain was also a standout feature of this race, albeit mostly shrouded by alpine mist for all four days of the event.
"The isolation is the unique factor in this race. You had this feeling of remoteness with just a couple of sheep tracks as guidance and knowing full well that the only people to venture up here were the musterers and us," Leuchs said. "That, coupled with the misty, thick clouds made it quite spooky. You could race for an hour without seeing anyone and when you did see someone again you were pretty excited."
"The navigation side was exciting, too. We didn't always know where to go next, so it was a challenge to make good decisions," Roy said.
"We really wanted to win this race and we knew so many things could go wrong in a long race, so we didn't want to risk anything. It's a very tough race," Leuchs said.
The winners will head next to race the 50km Motatapu Icebreaker starting at Glendhu Bay, Wanaka on March 14 and finishing in Arrowtown.
Next year, organizers plan to increase the number of teams from 60 to 100.
