The Tour de Wakatipu is the event that provided the original spark for the Queenstown Bike Festival and on Saturday I learnt why when I took part in the popular race.
Festival organisers used the six-month-old Queenstown Trail, which I was already pretty familiar with, but the addition of the exclusive ride along the right hand side of the Kawarau River provided a treat and a view I had not seen before from a bike seat.
Since Lake Hayes is a regular ride for any Arrowtowner and my transport option after the race was a 12km bike ride home from Chard Farm, I decided the recreational distance of 36km would be enough - and it was.
The competitor in me did not register the recreational tag and so I gunned it from the beginning and petered out somewhere between the Kawarau Bridge and the Gibbston valley. I finished with a time of 1hr 50min and was reasonably cheery about it.
The tour begins at Millbrook, bypasses Lake Hayes (although elite and sport do one full circuit), ploughs through Dalefield on to the Queenstown Trail, travels alongside the Shotover River to meet the one-way bridge and turns left to follow the Kawarau River up and down a few hills before reaching the Chard Farm winery.
The rewards for all riders were the steep downhills where at stages they could see the whole Gibbston valley open up before them, while the challenges were the six or seven hill climbs during the last 15km of farmland.
The climbs and descents provided some humour between myself and a male racer as he would pass me on the downhills and I would take him in the climbs.
The unknown rider caught me on one of the downhills just 6km from the finish line and said, ''See you at the next hill,'' which gave me extra motivation to beat him over the line.
It was not quite true to his prediction but, four hills later, I caught him on the longest climb of the race and called out, ''Got you in the end,'' before absolutely exhausting myself to make sure I finished before him.
I don't know if he thought of it that way, but we were racing and I won.
The reward for arriving to the finish was, of course, bananas, apples and chocolate milk.
I devoured two of the three, hung around for five minutes and continued home on the Queenstown Trail past the bungy bridge to Arrowtown where a quick hose-down of the bike and a nap in the sun were a definite need.
The Tour de Wakatipu was not the hardest race, but will go down as one of the more pleasant rides I have taken part in and one I am glad to have ticked off before moving to the big smoke of Dunedin later this year.
We Wakatipuians - especially those who love life on two wheels - are very lucky indeed.
Tour results
Elite open male
Matthew Lees 1hr 29min 58sec
Matt Randall 1hr 30min 2sec
Dave Drew 1hr 32min 34sec
Elite open female
Haley van Leeuwen 1hr 53min 19sec
Merrin Brewster 2hr 17min 24sec
Sport: open female
Sarah Moreton 1hr 53min 30sec
Paula Hasler 1hr 58min 43sec
Mary Affleck 2hr 59sec
Sport: open male
Rob Nesbitt 1hr 42min 30sec
Matt Kyhnn 1hr 43min 11sec
Michael Porter 1hr 43min 56sec
Recreational Open female
Jindra Sykorova 1hr 29min 54sec
Sarah Hinton 1hr 39min 54sec
Leanne Anderson 1hr 47min 53sec
Recreational Open male
Warren Topp 1hr 31min
Gerald Paterson 1hr 31min 41sec
Anton Dickens 1hr 32min 8sec
