After a two year break the New Zealand MTB marathon champs made a comeback joining into the Highlander which has also been missing off the bike calendar for a few years, it had rained over night and the tracks were in mint condition.
We had a casual start with everybody bunching up and no attacks happening so I jumped into the lead after the first single track section, we then headed straight into the first hikeabike section and I opened a small gap surprisingly. After that I knew there was a good chance of winning so I settled into a comfortable pace with 3 riders on my tail. By the first climb up Direct I had a gap again but kept the pace at comfortable and after a while Carl Jones caught back up just as we headed out around the Green Lake on the forestry roads. After this section there was only one last major climb so I used that to make my final breakaway, I attacked up the hill and lost Carl, quickly opening up a good gap and used the remaining 20km of single track to extend the gap and take out the New Zealand MTB Marathon Champs title - woohoo. This was a big relief as I really wanted to back up my Huka Challenge win with this race, so am happy everything went to plan.
Big thanks to my sponsors Yeti NZ, Mulebar, Roam Industries, Southstar Shuttles, Endura, Adidas Eyewear, Wildland Consultants, Outdoorsman Rotorua, and Aroha for feeding me.
Peace out
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