THE PIONEER - VERSION 2.0
“NO ONE RIDES CROSS-COUNTRY IN QUEENSTOWN”
After two brutal editions, would the new course for The Pioneer be tamer? We checked in on the global bucket-list event.
The backpacker working in the bike shop was pretty firm in his response. I was hunting out a 70mm stem in something with a 10 degree angle or less, to help get the bars a little lower on a bike after putting a Fox 34 SC 120mm fork onto my XC bike for the 2018 edition of The Pioneer. I’d checked three shops already, and I can see where this shop assistant was coming from. Queenstown Bike Park and the Skyline Gondola tower above the picturesque town in the Southern Lakes region of New Zealand’s South Island – most bikes are gravity sleds and most helmets are full face. NO one really does ride cross-country in Queenstown. But I was in Queenstown for The Pioneer, a 6-day mountain bike stage race that would tackle the intermediate trails, backcountry ways and high farm tracks around Queenstown and Central Otago. I wasn’t alone either – accompanied by my wife as my team mate for the pairs event, with about 600 other mountain bikers here for the same experience.
It turns out quite a few people would be riding cross-country in Queenstown.
A NEW F ACE FOR 2018
After 7-day editions in 2016 and 2017, the event team behind The Pioneer went back to the drawing board for 2018. The point to point route from Christchurch to Queenstown was long and difficult for riders and crew alike. The experience was exceptional, but the riding needed a little more variety, a bit more fun factor.
With a date shift from late summer to the start of summer, The Pioneer crew had time to get creative. Their course teams consulted and worked with local riders and a course was revealed that was a little shorter than before, more compact, but certainly no easier. Trail names like Rude Rock, Skippers Canyon, The Moonlight Track, Seven Mile, Flat Top Hill, Sphinx Trail and more popped up into the route – these trails would be on any trail riders tick list for a visit to Queenstown and Central Otago. The Pioneer was going to get pretty hectic!
ON THE PIONEER TRAIL
The internet was abuzz in the months leading up to The Pioneer in 2018. Not only had the event numbers swelled, but there was genuine curiosity about just what the new route would be like. Had the organisers gone crazy? Were we really racing in bike parks on high seat posts? Was it actually possible to have so much climbing?
Having raced the Swiss Epic in 2015 (which is now a part of the same global Epic Series as The Pioneer), I knew that yes, it would be likely that we would be on the trails of the bike park in Queenstown. And yes, you can climb close to 3000m in about 60km. But would it be a death
march, would it be hard? I expected it would be difficult, and I suspect most riders wouldn’t bother signing up if they had thought it would be easy. The Pioneer is a bucket list mountain bike event and a truly epic mountain bike experience. You have to work for that kind of thing.
With a crazy snow storm pummelling Queenstown barely a week before the event, the internet went crazy again. Would the race be cancelled? Would the route change? Surely we can’t race in the snow/cold/wet? But as Australians, we were quick to realise that not only did the Kiwi event crew have plans in place for weather, but New Zealand’s weather was quick to change back. And they would have made us race in the rain anyway – that’s what every other country does, just not us Australians!
With a clearing forecast, the prologue was the first test for riders, the course designers and the rest of the event crew. Coronet Peak was in the cloud, and snow was shovelled off the infamous Rude Rock descent just days earlier. We would be racing on a modified route, heading straight into the Rude Rock descent in 30 second intervals, before tackling Skippers Canyon, climbing out, and then taking on a new trail below the road to Coronet Peak.
The course had mud, some riders had drizzle, and often the start and finish area was in a cloud. But the 2018 edition of The Pioneer had arrived, and everyone was buzzing. “The mud wasn’t that bad!”, “How was that view!”, “I thought I saw an Orc!” and similar musings were heard.
The next day the true racing began, where we would be bar-to-bar with our competitors. The prologue results had put us all in the appropriate start chutes, but the start along the lake out of Queenstown was still pretty busy. We rode on gravel paths, backcountry singletrack, purposebuilt mountain bike trails above the lake, and then headed back towards Queenstown, towards the bike park. There was toil, there was tantrums, and there were tired legs. And that was just me. The road climb up to access the bike park showed many teams were just about on their limit. We climbed through the park on old trails and up some closed descending trails, until it was just all downhill to the finish. One chute after another, then a berm, a tabletop, huge braking bumps, another blown out berm and then ‘beep’ you’re over the timing mat.
And then, The Pioneer truly started. Until this point we had been in Queenstown. The picturesque village on the lake has everything you need. Queenstown throbs with an international crowd, and from the finishline we would move onto coaches and shuttle to Alexandra to move into the race village, either camping or in campervans. Now, the stage race would truly begin.
While you can book a house and have a friend or family member take you to and from the race start each day, the beating heart of The Pioneer is in the race village. It’s a very comfortable setup, with tables and chairs, vendors selling hot chips, pulled pork rolls, felafal wraps, coffees, ice cream and more. There is massage, a bar, music, games – and all manner of ways to boast about your prowess that day. It was very comfortable staying in Queenstown in an apartment – but the experience started once we moved into the camp.
The following stages in Alexandra continued to deliver the new mix of riding that The Pioneer was serving up. We had national cycle routes mixed with hand cut trails. We had rail trail, ridgeline traverses and rock gardens. When the event shifted to Bannockburn, we were even more in the backcountry, as the whole camp covered a farmer’s field. Once you were finished for the day, there was little left to do save for look at the ranges, and talk with other riders over a beverage. It was exactly what a mountain bike event should be. The final run into Queenstown was no parade, and I don’t think anyone left anything in the tank, with the look of elation on riders faces crossing the line showing that everyone was happy to have finished a monumental challenge.
RIDING THE PIONEER IN 2019
Entries open on February 14th and there’s a pricing structure that favours getting in early. The race dates are December 1-6, and teams of two will be tackling the 424km route and 15125m of climbing. While The Pioneer is part of the Epic MTB Series, it is its own event and worth doing in its own right if you want a challenge and have a sense of adventure. It’s no walk in the park. It wasn’t in the first two years and the new route shows it hasn’t been watered down. But a sense of satisfaction doesn’t game without hard graft, and The Pioneer team will make you work hard. But they will also reward you.
And for that reason I think a lot more people will continue to be riding crosscountry in Queenstown.
THE RACING IN 2018
Compared to the past two years, just about every category was more competitive. While the winning men’s team of Tim Rush and Michael Vink ended up clearly ahead, the women’s category came pretty close when the team of Brodie Chapman and Briony Mattocks started to claw back time from Amy Hollamby and Kate McIlroy – although they stayed on top with very classy riding. The mixed lead changed on the last day, and the Masters winners Anthony Shippard and Dave Evans rode out of their skins to finish 5th overall. The winning Grand Masters were in the top 10 overall. Full results are online – as I think many won’t remember results from The Pioneer in 2018, instead they’ll be holding onto memories from on and off the bike. pioneer.co.nz