Tauranga's Tristan Haycock is causing a stir in the mountain biking community after becoming the World Endurance Mountain Biking 24 Hour World Championship in the under-23 division.

The Tauranga Boys' College student was one of two Tauranga riders to take out their divisions. The other was Tim Mills in the 35-39 age group.

Tristan Haycock in action at the world Endurance Mountain Biking 24 Hour World Championships. Photo: Allan Ure / Photos4sale.

Both riders are coached by Chris Willett who Tristan says is the contributing factor in the 17-year-olds success.

Tristan says Chris had set a one year programme to get him ready for the event. It included a lot of strength work and slowly building up his endurance over time by entering different races and racing in the open division.

'I was in with the big boys right from the start… I did a 24-hour last January and that was the national champs and I rode 15 hours, I think, so I slept overnight and did enough to win it. That was under-23 so I've been building for the last year.”

The youngster says he put in somewhere between 300 and 500km a week of riding leading into the event and felt confident he would do well.

The Redwood Forest was the venue for the event with the riders using a 17km loop and look to travel the furthest in the 24 hour period.

It took Tristan just over an hour to do one lap and he clocked up 22 laps at a distance of 365km. Only stopping briefly for food and water but not sleeping for the entire time.

'My longest break was 8 minutes and in that time I jumped off the bike, got changed into different gear, had a feed, changed my lights because the forest is just dark there's (no lights) out there and then went back out.”

He says maintaining his concentration is the hardest thing during the race.

'It's a mission to learn. I done a couple [of races] beforehand, where I raced from 9 at night until 5 in the morning.”

The race began at 12pm and Tristan pushed hard at the start eventually grabbing the lead at 4pm. By 9am the next day he had lapped his nearest rival. Overall, the youngster finished eighth in the race.

Despite the early success Tristan doesn't have any plans to move up into the open men's division at this stage.

'I think I'm just going to sit in the under-23s for a couple of years yet. I've still got five years in [that division]. But I'm definitely considering it, it depends on how much competition I keep getting. If I get bored in there, I'll definitely move up.”

Tristan's next big event is the North Island secondary school champs and then this year's nationals and Oceania champs in Queenstown next month.