Day 2 Signature Tour
Bundanoon to Canberra 169km 1600m elevation.
Today was an awesome day weather wise. So much better than the rain yesterday. The terrain was awesome too with mostly undulating hills. We still climbed a fair amount in total, but nothing too hard. We bid goodbye to the first set of guest riders who joined us yesterday in Camden. It was really lovely chatting to some of them as I rode alongside. There are 70 full riders who do the whole 10 days, and there was 34 guest riders who joined us for this stint.
I wanted to run through what I would call a typical endurance day on the bike. We start the day usually at around 6am, sometimes earlier. We have a very yummy breakfast prepared by Canadian Kitchens (the caterers that follow us all the way). We then ensure that our bikes are ready for the day ahead, fill up water bottles, fill up pockets, have a coffee from the van (that also follows us). We stand in as background on Sunrise crosses, and then head off in different pelotons chosen to mix up the teams. These teams are based on major sponsors and I am in the Huawei team. For me I find it takes at least 30km to feel good on the bike. It can erode your confidence in your abilities when it feels that you are struggling at such an early stage!! We normally then stop and do a school presentation. This is a very cool experience as we are treated like rock stars. We stop for comfort stops to refill and refuel, and do a morning tea stop somewhere. We normally ride 40 to 50 kilometres in each stint. Lunch is provided again by Canadian Kitchens – always so yummy! This is usually at a school where we do another presentation. Depending on the length of the day we stop as needed through the afternoon until we reach our destination. We then usually rush to get ready for dinner which is always at 6pm. Here we invite locals and present a $5,000 cheque to a local Research and Support project. We have a few riders host the night, and these are usually very funny occasions, sometimes sad. We then do the jersey presentations which are for Attitude, Awareness, Doer, Inspiration, Focus and Guts. Very cool to see the deserving people get awarded.
So day 2 is done and dusted. The real hills start tomorrow, so that should be challenging. Some bodies will be more tired than others and we all have to rally together to get the day done. When you chat to other riders you realise that everyone suffers at different stages of the day and the Tour. It is such an inspiring experience overall, and I am very much looking forward to the days ahead.
The whole Signature Tour team today.
Thank you all very much for your donations. Keep them coming.
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