Queen of the Mountain: Big Bike Film Night showcases Annie Ford’s world record-breaking ride
Annie Ford on Coronet Peak, Queenstown, where she set a world record for the greatest vertical descent on a mountain bike in 24 hours.
No matter how extreme the challenge, adventure activist Annie Ford says quitting is not on the table.
When Queenstown adventure activist Annie Ford jumps ship in Greenland on her first mountain bike expedition to the Arctic, she’ll be packing a gun.
Scheduled to set sail from Norway in July aboard a marine science boat, she plans to break up the 2000km sea voyage by cycling across the Faroe Islands and Iceland along the way.
It’s the research vessel’s final destination at Scoresby Sound, a huge fjord system on Greenland’s eastern coast, where the risk of encountering a polar bear means she’ll be required to carry a gun when she’s out on her bike.
“So that will be weird,” says Ford, who studied marine biology and typically spends her time raising awareness about the damage humans inflict on the natural environment, rather than the other way around. “I really hope I don’t need to use it.”
If Ford had a theme song, as all the characters did on that 90s TV show Ally McBeal, it would be The Eagles’ Take It to the Limit …one more time.
Her next mammoth target is a 30-day downhill Everesting challenge, most likely over the Northern Hemisphere summer at Whistler ski resort in Canada next year.
That will involve hitting the mountain-bike trails to complete a daily descent of 8848m, a drop in elevation that’s the equivalent of riding down from the summit of Mt Everest. Doing it on repeat for 30 days straight is a feat no one has attempted before.
“To be honest, that scares the bejeebers out of me,” says the 35-year-old. “To do that every day and not get injured, not get complacent, not drop a foot [off the pedals] and not damage your hands …
“Both physically and mentally, it’s by far the riskiest and hardest ride I’ve attempted so far.”
The smart money is on her pulling it off, though. Last year, Ford set a Guinness World Record for the greatest vertical descent on a mountain bike in 24 hours – breaking the previous record she’d set in 2023.
Supported by a team of volunteers and fuelled by caffeine gels to keep her alert, she rode 133 laps of the downhill track on Coronet Peak, covering 412km and descending more than 55,000 vertical metres.
Overnight, the temperature dropped to near freezing and thick fog blanketed the course. By late morning, the sun had sucked out any moisture in the track, turning it to dust.
The ride took such a toll on Ford’s body that she couldn’t close her hands for the next three days and was left hobbling about on crutches.
Raising $35,000 for Te Tapu o Tāne, an iwi-led charitable organisation leading a reforestation project on the foothills, helped ease the pain.
“That mountain really does know how to throw it all at you,” she says. “It tests you to your absolute limit.”
A documentary on Ford’s world-record ride, Queen of the Mountain, is one of two pieces showcasing New Zealand in The Big Bike Film Night, an international collection of short cycling films currently touring nationwide.
Featuring works from Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, France and Italy, the programme also includes Pedals to Powder, which follows two women cyclists attempting to ride to all of Aotearoa’s ski fields in one snow season.
Ford grew up in Tasmania, where her first love was surfing. Her dad is a Kiwi and she’s always felt so at home here that a few years ago she sold her house, packed up her life in Australia and moved to Queenstown.
To reduce her carbon footprint, she had initially planned to ride down from Auckland, rather than fly.
Never one to pass up a challenge, she ended up cycling the full length of New Zealand, raising money for conservation projects and towing her surfboard on a trailer.
“What really lights me up is the activism element, how we use our purchasing power or choose to speak up for what we care about,” she says. “And making it fun.”
While working as CEO of Tāhuna Ride and Conservation in Queenstown, a non-profit supporting mountain biking and native regeneration, she was horrified to learn 95% of the biodiversity in the Whakatipu Basin has been lost since the mid-1880s.
It was a wake-up call that led her to reflect on what the mountain has sacrificed in giving so much. “The privilege of being in these incredible environments really does inspire you to stand up for them,” she says.
“We’re all benefiting from the beauty of this region, which is actively degrading, whether it’s our sewerage treatment plants overflowing because of the rapid increase in population or cutting down the trees to make more space.
“There’s a responsibility to give back, not just to extract. This backyard of ours is so inspiring, but I can’t put my drink bottle into the rivers around here and drink from them.”
Dubbed an “adventure activist” when she was invited to talk on The Waterpeople Podcast, run by a couple of Californians who’ve moved to Australia, Ford has embraced the concept of storytelling with a purpose.
After setting her downhill world record last year, she rode solo across Europe from Norway to Morocco to platform opposition to new offshore oil and gas exploration and call for an end to native logging in Tasmania.
Thanks to support from key sponsors, including Patagonia, Santa Cruz Bicycles and Thule, Ford has been able to step into a full-time activist role.
She says her psychological preparation to build mental strength for each new challenge plays an even more important role than physical training.
“When you go to the start line, quitting is not on the table.”
• The Big Bike Film Night is touring nationwide until June. You can follow Annie Ford on Instagram at annieford01.
Joanna Wane is a senior lifestyle writer with an interest in social issues and the arts.