Day 6 – Cooma to Thredbo
Today was a magnificent day, in fact a veteran of 5 tours, David Lowe described today as one the best ever days on Tour!
The weather was magnificent, the scenery was brilliant and the riding was outstanding. Read on and I will go into more details.
This morning was quite chilly but as we exited the accommodation today you could tell the weather was going to be kind to us as the sky’s were clear and blue.
We had a short journey down to the local Cooma North Primary School where Mark Beretta did his morning routine much to the excitement of the local children whose families were most likely watching at home.
As we took off from the primary school every bodies minds turned to a special part of the tour that lets us off the hook and challenges us to “Just go fast”, the team time trial.
We traversed out about 20 kilometres to the starting point of our team time trial. The pace was quite slow as now that we are into day 5 the legs are starting to feel like lead the first thing in the morning! We were soon at the Cooma Airport where we formed up into our teams and set off individually for a 15km dash to the finish.
As each of the teams formed up there was a bit of nervous excitement. Was I going to keep up? Were we going to beat the other teams, I hope I don’t hold the big boys back!
As my team formed up we had a good mix of riders. As we got going we quickly formed into a tight line so that everyone could get the best draft as we went along. Soon we were into our rhythm and shooting along the road at over 40km an hour. As the front rider bears the brunt of the wind we made sure that we changed the front rider as often as needed to maintain our momentum. Rebecca Snell the only female rider in our team was tucked nicely into the centre of the bunch to help to shield her and as we pushed to the finish everybody was really happy with our teams performance.
There was the usual sledging at the other teams form and disappointing results as they crossed the line and we will have to wait a couple of days till the drug tests come back to see who the real winners were.
With the distraction of the team time trial over for the day it was back to the task of the next 30km’s to Jindabyne.
As we all formed up into our pelotons again we didn’t really know what was ahead of us but we soon found a few hills that seemed to go on forever. After as much riding as we have done over the last few days some of these hills hurt big time but with the encouragement of all around us everybody got to the top.
This part of the ride for me was the most spectacular part of the whole Tour so far and as we crested a rise and saw Lake Jindabyne in the distance framed by the majestic mountains in the background my breath was taken away. The experience was completed when we stopped for morning tea right on the lake shore.
When morning tea was complete we went to a nearby primary school and our Cancer prevention message was expertly delivered by Danny Moore. The kids at all the schools that we have been to have been really excited to see us and it is great to impart a positive message to the eager students.
With only 30km to go the spirits in the group were high and it seemed to fly past. When we got to Thredbo we were greeted by a magnificent spread for lunch at the base of the snowfields.
As we were sitting eating we were privileged to be welcomed to Thredbo by Stuart Diver a name that was etched into Thredbo history on July 30, 1997 when his ski lodge fell down the mountain.
Stuart invited all the riders to go for a ride to the top of the mountain on the ski lift so everybody eagerly jumped on and went to the top. When we got there we were greeted by an absolutely brilliant view over the majestic mountains and valley that contains Thredbo.
At tonights dinner we were privileged to donate $5000 to the Cure the Future organisation
Jeff Coombes – Focus
Off Roadies – Inspiraton
Cora Zillich – Attitude
Leigh Hubner – Guts
Pat Carpenter – Doer
Ian Salmon –Thinker
Tomorrow we face the biggest day of the Tour this year. We are riding a massive 235 km between Thredbo and Albury with a huge 3102m of ascending so think of us at 5.00am when we roll out on the start of our journey rugged up the the hilt but ready for the challenge.
Here is my Video for the day
Here is my Garmin readout
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