Filed under: cycling | Tags: , australia, bicycle, charity, cycling, melbourne, riding, sydney
Day 1
After very little sleep, prob due to being scared and excited it was a 515 wake up call for 6 start at Bikeforce. Heidi dropped me off, but didnt want to stay as she was also worried about what we were taking on.
Got myself sorted and made sure the bike was good to go and water bottles etc were all full. Met up with the bikeforce guys whoa re always keen for an early morning ride. Also Dave, Roger and a few other forum guys turned up.
Couple of pics by the van and it was time to roll off.
We headed out through the local roads and outwards towards the Hume, picking up Vidman and lisa on route. The pace a nice easy one as we wanted to try and maintain a slow but steady ride as best as we could. One of the bike force guys had a flat and we carried on later to be caught by them as they said there farewells.
Hitting the Hume was a huge moral boost although the sign at this point still said around 840 km to sydney a sign that would plague us for the rest of the trip as the K’s seemed to go down ever so slow 700, 600, 500 etc.
The weather I have to say was not kind,
Rain every day and alo tof it to boot, even had a massive problem with hail during day 1 as well which was really frustrating.
Todays goal was Albury Wadonga, where we had a warm sleep arranged at a guys house who had offered to help us, so it was important that we made it there at some point during the day.
The hours rolled on and on and the k’s counted down and down so we were making good progress. Ross fell foul to a early puncture which was the first of many for him, if nothing else we learnt to fix flats pretty quick as if you stopped for to long you would start shivering.
I also broke a spoke on day not very happy back to the old 15000km shimano 500’s
[img]http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k203/craigjdurkee/DSCF2061.jpg[/img]
i had made it very clear in my mind that i needed to avoid the nasty problems with not eating and drinking enough on this ride and this happened from the start, there was always a drink and food waiting whenever we stopped Brett (ross’s mate) was a total star, filling bottles, and generally making the stops a good place to be, encourageing us to go on and thats what we did.
We rolled on into the night and then around 930pm we were nearly at albury, a quick call to the accomodation and it was a decision to then pop the bikes in the van for the last 5k or so as to not arrive to late and waste valuable sleeping time trying to find the house.
The bikes were loaded but andy forgot to put his front wheel in resulting in it either being stolen or more than likely run over by a passing vehicle.
Paul who put us up along with his wife jane were faultless, each of us having our own double bed, warm bath or shower and even offered to cook us food, Paul himself a keen cyclist thought we were nuts, by this point i was starting to agree.
Day 2
Day 2 and the biggest planned day would see us attempting to get to Goulburn, we quickly realised that the hills, wind and lashing rain would do all it could to stop this and stop it it did.
Feeling good if not a little sore we changed the plan to suit the distances that we thought we might be able to do, this pissed me off slightly as i really wanted to hit the goal in 3 days, my calls to try and get to goulburn fell foul when my knee started to play up and also tiredness was getting worse.
Brett made sure that the breakfast that he served was ready and waiting at pre arranged stops along the way and I have to say a huge helping of pasta with baked beans tomato sauce and cheese was just what the dr ordered it gave us the ebergy needed to press on.
By the end of day 2 we were at gundagai, a small town just off the hume famous for its dog on a tucker box statue, accomodation was easy to find and pretty nice there, each of us having a bed and watching a bit of tv before eating a nice chinese takeaway from a local place.
Day 3
The biggy , we knew that this was gonna be a massive pain in our ass, the hills where HUGE, long and relentless in punishing the already sore knee and other body parts, todays goal Goulburn.
The hills started right form the get go and never stopped, made even worse by the wind that was now a full on huge head wind, making even 20km an hour down hills hard to achieve.
The other guys wanted to draft the van , i didnt feel very safe about this and really didnt want to , a few heated words by all of us and i decided that I really wasnt going to a) not do it on my own and b) do something that i didnt feel comfy in so seeing as i was already falling back a few k’s per hour at this point i picked up some tubes and a pump and did the next 80-100k or so pretty muchon my own and i have to say its a great way to do it ipodon shouting the songs out with no one to laugh I love it.
Not long after that andy had an off, so they passed me in the van dropped ross off around 30k shy off yass took andy to dr’s and me and ross rode on, again i got dropped by ross and proceeded the last 30 or so k into yass alone. The knee just wasnt going to ease off, so started sropping a few pain killers every hour to keep it at bay.
Had some lunch in yass and then started to ride off again, rode about another 40k and then when i was around 30k from goulburn the knee was in to much pain and was worried about compremising the rest of the ride, so jumped in the van for the last 30k.
Accomodation in goulburn was crap if im honest, but we were all so tired it did not matter, a domino’s pizza and a safeway stop filled the rest of the night before a 9pm bedtime.
day 4
The last day, started off again the knee was hurting big time and with yet another 200 or so k things were looking bleak, from the outset i was having trouble keeping up, eventually the gap had got bigger then around 130k from sydney I rode off again on my own but this time in front, mentally that felt better for some reason, Now I could see light at the end of the tunnell, the hills got smaller the weather slightly better and the signs got better telling me city was getting closer and closer yipeeeeee.
140, 120, 100 then i goto 50km and a sign that said welcome to sydney almost made it, regular contact with brett told me that everything was cool, then a cycle path detour around the liverpool area of the freeway split us up again, and then a flat for me my second of the trip. The detour eventually brought us all back together near liverpool, with 40km to go i could smell the finish.
Fixed the flat regrouped and then it was plain sailing into the city, down came a shower or 2 but it didnt matter we had beat the hume and all the shit it threw at us, I panicked a bit going through the city and wanted the guys to be carefull as a stack there would be diasterous, but we cariied on flying through traffic non the less.
We caught a glimpse of the famous landmarks, got off our bikes took a few snaps the journey was over.
It was hard, frustrating, taxing, challenging, fun, laughter and tears but we all made it dispite everything the weather could throw at us.
Thanks to everyone who supported us an donated money and kind words, we will have a total for you guys hopefully next week. 99.9% of the money will be going to the charity as it was agreed that the costs for van food etc would be split by the 3 riders, its such a great cause and hope to be able to do something like this for the kids again
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Comment by cqkgjytmwg November 26, 2007 @ 2:00 pmcqkgjytmwgcqkgjytmwgcqkgjytmwg cqkgjytmwg