Day 1 | Hotham to Lakes Entrance | 181km

As usual, the queue for Vittoria coffee, was long, and yes I was definitely part of the queue! The mountain air was chilly, spirits were high and everyone was keen to get riding…. The team from Channel 7’s Sunrise filmed live as dawn broke over the stunning alpine scenery, heralding the start of Signature Tour 2017.

We crossed the highest mountain range in Australia and now the only way is down. With fresh legs, cycling through the twists and turns of alpine country – normally I’m doing this with a pair of ski’s attached to my ankles, and my surroundings all white. This time its all green trees and grazing fields with the little town of Omeo in site. It really was quite something.

One of the highlights was stopping off at Omeo Public School and Swifts Creek, where one of our riders, Dave Hall is a teacher. The kids were thrilled to see him kitted out in his blue lycra kit – particularly his daughter who gave her dad a big hug. We all loved the sign they’d made for him outside: “Mr Hall you’re oarsome but not very good at teaching spelling!”

Jens Voigt is back again this year and proudly wore the Tour de Cure Yellow Jersey, which he received last night for ‘attitude’ after completing a recent 26-hour Everest challenge to raise money for Tour de Cure. Jensie said it was much harder to win this jersey than the coveted yellow jersey in the Tour de France because he’d only had to ride 200km for that one!

It was a long 181km haul from Hotham to Lakes Entrance, the peleton dug deep today to help each other through. It’s hard work keeping people safe when you’re going downhill. It will be memorable for a couple of us with an incident on the ‘slippery when wet’ roads. We managed to pick ourselves up and kept going. Following a visit to the first aid tent, to tend to some grazes, a trip to the bike mechanic tent was in order. The final stop before dinner some new lycra and hardwear for the head!

Sadly, a good mate who we shared a meal with last night and rode with last Tour, Tony Corelli (right hand side in the picture with the three of us) received the news that today his Dad was diagnosed with cancer. Ironically just the before night he was telling me that there is no cancer in his family. Luckily it’s operable. But it goes to show none of us are immune.