The Liebster Awards

The 1st leg from Lorne to Anglesea was very pretty but seemed to be entirely up or down. The concept of “flat” seems to be alien to this the final stretch of the Great Ocean Road.

Some wayyyy fun downhills though.

I made it past the checkpoint in fairly good time, but the other members of the group were riding fast so I was already behind. The schedule for the final day needs to be carefully managed, especially for the final ride into Docklands, so Phil made the call to have me picked up then.

After seeing the terrain for myself, I have to say that he made the right call as the ride through Geelong and the outskirts of Melbourne to the Werribee RSL lunch stop would have been pretty painful. I got some photos of bunches passing a point where the bus stopped so that Phil could mark directions and Susan could get a count of the riders.

And it meant I was fresh for the final group ride into Docklands, during which I racked up 800Ks for the trip. Yay!

This last ride was very carefully managed – we were split into three groups of about 15 riders. Phil and Susan led the 1st group in the bus, Janet in the landcruiser trailed the second group, and Oppy in the truck trailed the third group.

As far as I could tell from the third group, all groups rode fairly tightly, and behaved as responsible road users, with no problems on the way. We also travelled at an easy pace that all riders (even me!) could keep up with.

Given how many times I got picked up by the landcruiser and passed by the other riders, I found it quite surreal to have the landcruiser in front and other cyclists behind. 🙂

All too soon it was over and I was at the hotel winding down prior to having dinner with a friend currently working in Melbourne.

In case it hasn’t been clear from my other posts Phil and Susan McDonald run a superbly organised tour where everything is thought of in advance. The support crew – Peter, Janet, and Oppy – were also excellent and I thoroughly recommend All Trails to anyone considering serious supported tours.

Just learn from my mistake and train enough 1st. 🙂

And now for the final stats:

Distance: 822.71
Time:        43.21
Average:   19.32
Max:           63.9
Total:         5312

Or, to put this into perspective, in the last year over 10% of my time/distance on the trike has been done in the last week or so…

Pirates of the Burley Griffin

~ A schedule bears the same relationship to reality as Astrology

Category Archives: Great Ocean Road

The Liebster Awards

The Obligatory Gloat!

Photos Up!

Day 8 – Lorne to Melbourne – Photos

Day 8 – Lorne to Melbourne