545Km in under 24 hours.

New Zealand’s James Williamson and Scott Lyttle (Team Watson & Sons Manuka Honey) took out the 2017 Pioneer Mountain Bike Stage race

Holding off the fast finishing Spaniards Tomi Misser and Ibon Sugasti (Imparables) on the final stage into Queenstown today while Nina McVicar (Nelson) and Reta Trotman (Christchurch) in team Hirepool took out the women’s honours.

In a race that has already established itself as amongst the best in the world and with a truly international field, with 17 countries represented by a total of 154 riders, there were emotional scenes as the winners and those further down the field rode into Queenstown to greet family, friends and hundreds of supporters celebrating their achievement. The fastest team completed the 545km in just under 27 hours.

The Pioneer partnered up with world renowned Cape Epic - the only eight-day stage race classed as hors catégorie (beyond categorisation) by the UCI. 10 team entries for the 2018 Absa Cape Epic have been set-aside exclusively for 2017 Pioneer, 7 Day Epic athletes.