.. of the Southern Hemisphere's longest running mountain bike event. The 50k ride around Upper Hutt's rugged and remote Akatarawa Ranges is renown for testing both body and bike and while race day provided perfect weather, the previous week's rain provided a mud and rock-strewn route that turned the form book on it's ear. 

Mark Leishman (right) wasn't the expected winner. The Palmerston North mountain bike and off road triathlon specialist is always thereabouts, but has never had much luck at Karapoti. In recent year's he'd finished fifth, seventh and twice sixth, all solid results marred by punctures or mechanical issues. Even Leishman himself wasn't expecting what followed.

For the second year in a row all eyes were on Leishman's fellow Palmerston North rider Stuart Houltham. Last year Houltham won the national title and Karapoti in the same week and he looked likely to repeat the feat after winning the national title again this year. And there was also Australia's Merida Flight Centre pro team with Nick Both and Tim Bennett - both Karapoti placegetters in the past - and mountain bike orienteering world champion Adrian Jackson. No one mentioned Mark Leishman. 

Indeed, it was Jackson who sparked the race up from the start. An early split after Karapoti's LeMans-like start across the Akatarawa River saw Jackson, Houltham and Nelson youngster George Bennett leading a small group as they approached the first of Karapoti's three cruel climbs. Leishman, in fact, only joined them after red-lining himself for 10k after missing the split. 

"When I caught them I went straight to the front and tried to slow the pace down so I could recover before the first climb," he grinned. 

It didn't take long for the group to reject Leishman's tactics and as they started up the 500m high Deadwood Ridge it was Jackson who emerged again at the front. The three-time mountain bike orienteering world champion is a specialist in long adventure style races such as Karapoti and revelled in the wet, muddy conditions. By the time he rocketed down the fabled Rock Garden and clambered up the feared Devil's Staircase he had split the front group and opened up several minutes over Bennett. 

It was on Devil's Staircase that Mark Leishman also started to emerge. "I think my triathlon fitness really helped," he would later say. "I was nowhere early on but on all those slippery climbs I got off and could run faster than the others were riding." 

On Devil's Staircase Leishman clambering back to fourth, then after a hair-raising downhill he worked his way into second place on the 5k long Dopers Hill by running the steepest, slipperiest pitches while others tried to ride. But really Leishman's race came together 10min ahead of him. 

Australia's Adrian Jackson was flying down Karapoti Gorge with a 10min lead and only 5k to ride when he felt his tyre go flat. He put in a new tube and was still leading when it blew again. But this time he was out of spares and could only watch and swear as a surprised but pleased Leishman raced past for the win. 

"I can't believe it, it's like a fairytale," said the surprised winner as he stood on the finish line in disbelief. In truth Leishman hadn't really had Karapoti on his radar for 2009 and only entered a week out at the organisers good-natured insistence. The bike he rode, a 27 pound 29'er, was even borrowed and still being fitted the night before the race. 

"You can't help feel for the Aussie guy," he said. "But that's Karapoti and I've had my share of bad luck here in the past."  

A despondent Adrian Jackson eventually trundled in on his punctured wheel in an unlucky 13^th place, 16min behind Leishman's winning time of 2hrs 28min 39secs; a performance that in better conditions might have seen him make Karapoti's elite sub-2:20 club. Seventy-two seconds behind him, Stuart Houltham completed the Karapoti podium set, claiming second place to go with his first last year and a third in 2002. Aussie Nick Both also started his own Karapoti collection, adding third place to his second in 2007.

While Mark Leishman provided the surprise of the day, his fellow Palmerston North rider Fiona Macdermid (right) left nothing to surprise. A year ago Macdermid missed the women's course record and $1000 bonus that goes with it by just six seconds. This year she faced the record holder, Commonwealth Games rep Jennifer Hopkinson-Smith; not to mention Aussie pro Jo Bennett and big Kiwi improvers Samara Sheppard and Nic Leary. But once again Karapoti's cruel course played havoc with the formbook.

Hopkinson-Smith and Sheppard both slipped from contention with bad punctures and while Leary and Bennett raced well to second and third place, Macdermid was in another class. Most top riders were 10 to 15min slower than normal on the weather ravaged course, but Macdermid produced arguably the best female performance in Karapoti history. Paced for much of the race by her husband and coach, she ripped around the course in 2hrs 47min 54secs, this time finishing a cruel 19secs outside the record, but taking some consolation in the fact that on a drier track a sub-2:40 might be possible.   

Macdermid also took consolation in her family success. While she and husband Paul were racing the feature 50k Merida Karapoti Classic, their 11 year old daughter, Kara, was winning the junior women's category within the 20k Penny Farthing Cycles Challenge. The younger Macdermid finished only 13min behind a close race for line honours between local teenage standouts Matt Grundy and Chris Strain, provoking comment from a proud mum, "I think I'll have to start looking over my shoulder before long." 

Palmerston North riders continued to standout, with Jackson and Rose Green defending their tandem title. Other highlights included Rotorua's Mary-Anne Avery taking out her 10^th Karapoti age group title, this time in the 50 to 59 year old women, while fellow Roto-Vegas rider Garth Weinberg continued his single speed reign with a sixth title in seven years.  

Further back in the pack, 72 year old Alan Etheridge and 61-year-old Sue Cuthbertson were crowd pleasers when they became the first 70-year old male and 60 year old female to finish Karapoti. At the other end of the scale nine-year-old Eden Cruise became the youngest ever to complete the gruelling 50k course, and beat more than half the field in the process.