Jodi Harris's Blog

2014 SIGNATURE TOUR WRAP UP

Now that the craziness of Tour has wound down and the “bubble” is slowly dissipating, I have had time to reflect a little. I have been lucky enough to stay on in Hobart and enjoy some of the sights and spend time with some Tour friends.  Nomes went home a day earlier so I am on my own and have lots of time to think. I am now on Tour de Food.  The food in Tassie seems so tasty and my metabolism is still on Tour.  Hard to believe how much food I can still consume!

I realise the enormity of what I have done with Tour, and it’s a very satisfying feeling.  Over three solid months of training and ten days of awesome riding through our spectacular country.  This was a word I used numerous times on the day through the Snowy Mountains on day four.

The vivid blue skies against the harshness of the Great Dividing Range at 1,500 metres – wow!

This was a Tour of climbing.  There was not a flat day on the route at all. Our flattest day on day nine was still 1,500 metres.  I have always said that the prettiest rides are the hardest ones, as the view from the top is always worth it.

This particularly applied to Mt Wellington which I climbed with Naomi on a mountain bike after Tour. At 1,260 metres the views are spectacular (when the clouds clear enough, as you are above the cloud line!!).  That is the best climb I have ever done! To then tackle the North South Track was a very memorable thing, particularly for a non-mountain biker!!

Chris Cosh and his posse (special mention to Lyn and Dick – you guys rock) of people in the Canadian Kitchens truck – thank you so much for the delicious and abundant food that you prepared.  Breakfasts of hot porridge, granola, cereals, fruit, yoghurt, eggs, bacon, wraps, rolls, hash browns, snags, rice, spuds, fresh juice and breads.  This was an every day thing.  Just amazing.

Lunches were somewhere en route and consisted of stir fries, curries, burritos, burgers, smokey ribs, roasts, noodles, rice, salads of all descriptions, veges galore, and then desserts of all types (my favourite was the sticky date pudding of course!).  Each night we had a community dinner.  Some of the towns really got behind the whole thing and had a huge contingent of people and made a big event of it.  One such place was Corryong where we had a local band, the Lions club did the dinner, and all manner of locals donated stuff which was auctioned such as scones, sponge and fruit cake which were all sold off for in excess of $1,000 (all going to TdC). I sat on a table with the local CWA ladies, who themselves donated $200. Another memorable community were the locals at Swansea who set up a huge marquee on the oval and donated all of the meals for the night.  This was a huge and generous thing to do.

Then there was Tom and Gerry – the best baristas on the eastern seaboard, with the yummiest blend of Vittoria coffee yet.  These guys pumped out countless coffees of all descriptions in all sorts of locations.  When they passed the peloton they would sound the Dukes of Hazard horn – all very amusing! Coffee is the elixir of cyclists, so these boys kept us more than satisfied!

Each night there are category jersey winners announced.  These are for Attitude, Inspiration, Guts, Awareness, Doer, and Focus.

There is also a Muppet Award on Tour, which is always given with much hilarity and bantering, for doing something that deserves a good ribbing.  Marty won it two nights in a row, and then JT also kept it for two nights (almost more!). I was very grateful to receive the Attitude jersey on the first night in Sydney for work before Tour in setting up and managing a closed Facebook group for the participants of Tour.  I love to be involved and received some very kind words from Gary Bertwistle was that ‘I lit up a room when I enter it’ – how nice!! It is always so gratifying when you see the recipients of these jerseys as you know they have gone above and beyond and are so very deserving.  Being a part of Tour is so much about being selfless and giving.

At each of these dinners there is also a local Research and Support Project that receives the $5,000 cheque donation.  You hear some rather touching and uplifting stories from these recipients, and you know that the money will be used wisely and is much appreciated.

The support group deserve many thanks for all they do, with a huge kudos going to Victor, the main man.

There are the front and rear car drivers and navigators (who keep us safe from all the traffic, and keep us hydrated and fed on the road), truck/van drivers for the three trucks, Specialized van (with Willie Makeit aka Dave, and our talented photographers), Flipman which is the social media, schools and corporate gurus.  A big shout out to Garrick our physio, who kept me (and many others) going, and glued together with Rock Tape.  Also to our medicos – Owen, Simon and Stuart, who ended up having a busy Tour with about ten people succumbing to a very nasty gastro bug.

In terms of raising the profile of what Tour de Cure do, the Sunrise team do a great job.  Mark Beretta, James Tobin, Trent, Petchy and the production crew are all genius.  We get to see little snippets during Tour of some of their footage and it is nothing short of amazing.  We had two helicopters on this Tour.  One rolling along Beach Road in Melbourne (where I was lucky to be riding beside Beretts), and then again on the ride out of Swansea along the beautiful coastline.  I look forward to seeing the documentary they put together, as last years was awesome.  Beretts and JT are such nice people to be around as well – they both are very humble and have the best sense of humour! I hope that Beretts continues his ambassadorship of the TdC organisation.

Some of my highlights were:

• Receiving special letters of encouragement from my kids (Aidan 15 and Madelene 13) which were to be opened at specified points along the way.  I am so proud of them.
• Riding on the front of the peloton into Healesville Primary School on day 7.  I attended here for two years (and then Healesville High School for all six years).  I was greeted by old and dear friends – Kazzie, Kersten, Kirsty and Scott.  I said a few words of introduction on the school presentation, and was interviewed by local media.  Felt like a bit of a rock star I did! I was lucky enough to stay on longer than normal and roll out with the last peloton.
• Riding up to Jamiesons Lookout where I then had an emotional moment remembering all of the many fun times had at Eildon and Bonnie Doon on family holidays. It’s a tough thing at times to have no parent’s alive.
  

  Having a cry on Duffy’s shoulder!

• Riding past Narbethong Primary School (where I attended as one of 23 students in the whole school), and of course Black Spur Inn Hotel, which we owned as a family for five years.
• Heading up the ramp onto the Spirit of Tasmania.  I had never been to Tassie so it was all very exciting.
• Rolling down the big hill into Launceston to the Camp Quality event by the water, where there was lots of fun being had by all the kids and their families.
• Rolling down into Swansea and sharing drinks with everyone at day’s end.  Sharing a room in Swansea with the other half of the “J Team” – Jules!
  

  The J Team

• After the team time trial we pulled up for morning tea in what turned out to be the landing strip for a big yellow crop duster.  Initially it looked like he was going to hit the tops of our trucks as he came in to land. He refilled, did a run, and then came back and we did some rolling footage of the peloton and the plane swooping down beside us.  This will look brilliant on the footage.
• The people generally were much friendlier in Tassie, with people stopped on the road side waiting for us to pass and give us a wave, give donations, and best of all, in every town we had an escort in or out.  The first ones into Launceston were the local police – on mountain bikes!  In other towns we had the Rural Fire Brigade and the local police, which in some cases led us for around 40km!
• My newly adopted Morris family.  What can I say?
  

  Steph and Alison keeping us pumped!

  We had Steph and Alison on the side of the ride with music blaring, pom poms and the coolest dance moves.  They were later joined by Steph’s parent’s too.  Not only did I get to know Cory well on last year’s Tour, I met Steph on last year’s Qld Country Tour as she did support.  I have spent many hours training with Cory this year in the lead up to Tour. Zac and Trevor were part of the support team this year, and I think looked after me especially well!  I met Luke in Canberra, plus Jacinta made a surprise visit to Hobart, so I have now met the whole clan.

• Sharing the journey with Daren Armstrong, who is a two time cancer survivor.  He lives only one kilometre from us, and so I had the pleasure of getting to know him prior to Tour.  He and fellow Queenslander David Halliweill shared their stories in Corryong, and there was not a dry eye in the house!
• The camaraderie within the riders.  Last year on support I found it hard to watch the riders doing something that I love to do, even though I had a very worthwhile role.  When you are riding along there is amazing support and lots of laughs, many shared stories and the odd joke too.  I got to know a whole new set of personalities, and of course I don’t mind a bit of a chat, so I am in my element.  I loved getting to know the guest riders too, even though they were only with us for a short time.
• The generosity of the ‘Bike Ride’ store in Hobart.
  

  Off to Mt Wellington!

  Nomes and I rocked in and asked if they had any bikes to hire, and they ended up giving us quality mountain bikes to use for the day, without even asking for our details.  I suppose they thought we were trustworthy and knew what we were doing, given what we had just done on Tour.  It was a fabulous way to end our R&R time.  Much to the disgust of my hubby, I had a ball mountain biking the North South Track (it was definitely challenging for me though, and I nearly came off countless times!!!).

• Listening to Prof John Rasko and Chuck Bailey in Bundanoon, knowing that we are making a difference in the world of ground breaking cancer research.

When I departed Hobart today the weather had turned cold and rainy.  It was more like the weather that I had expected of Tassie, but luckily did not receive.  The weather fairy again had spread her magic over the Tour though, and had for the most part, given us pretty much perfect riding weather.  The worst day was riding out of Sydney to Adaminaby, where it rained, and the resultant constant mechanicals (many flats), made it a long and wet day (felt sorry for Paul Beretta on this day, which was also his birthday!). Rolling in to Eildon at 7.30pm in the dark on our longest day of 211km was a little challenging towards the end.  The roads were wet which made the two big descents long, slow, and very painful on the hands and shoulders.  I have a bit of arthritis so long descents requiring lots of braking are tough on my hands. On a dry day these would have been awesome, as I do love descending!

I have to talk about the hurt days.  One of my team mates made a comment during one of the climbs early on, that they were glad they could actually hear me breathing hard as they did not think I was human!!  I may make it look like I am doing it easy, and for the most part my intense training (and close following of the TdC set program) paid off, but days eight and nine were my hurt days.  Funnily enough it was not that I was injured as such, but I just could not maintain the right energy levels, so I was struggling. I had to up the consumption of energy bars, gels and food to keep going.  This is when support come into their own and keep you going. I am amazed at how well my body coped.  There are body parts that you really need to look after to ensure they do not make riding excruciating! Many comments have been made about the fact we climbed Mt Wellington, but it’s nice to know that I am fit enough to step back on the bike and continue riding as normal.

The ride into Hobart was unforgettable.  Rolling down the hill to see Mt Wellington looming in the distance, crossing over the bridge to see the Hobart waterfront to the left.  Knowing that very soon we would be stopping at Parliament House where our loved ones were there.  It was surreal knowing that I had physically completed the challenge.  My hubby Warren was there with a big hug, and I could see how proud he was.  There were lots of cuddles and congratulations with all my TdC buddies.  Such an out of this world experience to share with a bunch of extraordinary people. The elation of finishing and the sadness of it all ending for another year.  As my brother said to me, behind giving birth and getting married, it would be my biggest achievement in life.

To date, Tour de Cure have raised $2,547,485 for this financial year.  We are aiming for the big $3 million, so there is still a way to go. We have spread the ‘Be Fit, Be Healthy, Be Happy’ message to thousands of school children and adults on this Tour. It’s not about the bike or the ride, but all about funding the vital cancer breakthroughs that are needed to save lives.

I thank each and every one of my supporters and donators.  Your constant messages have kept me going on the tough days, and have just made me feel very loved and warm and fuzzy!  Mostly I thank every single person involved in the 2014 Signature Tour.  I cherish the friends I have made whilst involved with TdC, and know that we will continue to cherish them and build upon them.

I have already lodged my Expression of Interest for 2015 Signature Tour, plus for 2014 State of Origin Country Tour.  Fingers crossed I get to do this all over!!

Don’t forget to look at the photo gallery at: https://www.tourdecure.com.au/pages/news/gallery

xoxo

 

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