02
Apr
2014

Day 6 – Wangaratta to Lake Eildon

What an epic day – 5am rise, roll to the school again inn the dark, quick brekkie and out just as it is beginning to become light.  Today we have the honour of guest riders joining us, and some of them celebrities (Phil Anderson – 1st Aussie to ever wear the TdF Yellow Jersey, Rick Kelly – V8 supercar driver, Belinda Goss – Aust womens track bike champion to name a few)

With the exception of Phil, the other guest riders would join us at the halfway point of todays ride at Mansfield School.  Just before we left I, along with a few other riders were presented with a ‘lucky charm’ badge to attach to our jerseys by young students at the Wangaratta School, mine was a hand drawn guardian angel which I will keep on the jersey all tour.

This morning I was in peleton 2 and we had a great vibe going all morning, and a lovely roll through the Vic countryside on a predominantly flat road for 40 odd kms.  The sun was just coming up over the plains and made for a great sight.  Many homesteads out on the route and looked fantastic.  When we arrived at our first school in Whitfield, we were in the company of copious vineyards and olive orchards, very tempting to pull up stumps and stay the day 🙂

The kids there were fantastic, they played a song for us on their musical instruments and sang Queens’ We Will Rock You’. They were also very bright and knew all the Healthy questions and were very engaging.  I also got to speak to some locals and had a chat with a lovely older lady who was dressed in a cycling jersey and I discovered she had only just 6 months ago taken up cycling.  She did not envy us riding the next 40kms we had planned as it was a mountainous ride to Mansfield.  She stuck mainly to the valley and enjoyed the freedom of cycling, but unfortunately has already crashed once, albeit only in her steep driveway trying to ride up it 🙂

From there we headed out and began the 9km climb to the top of the first mountain, we kept it together as a pack and was a most enjoyable ascent without the stress of friendly competition. An awesome descent into Mansfield we were met with another keen bunch of school kids, where I was presented with a welcome sign to keep.  We also met Belinda and Rick here for their Guest ride along with Steve Wykes who was peleton 2’s 3rd guesty and bloody nice bloke)

There was one main climb still to do which was a steeper climb of around 10kms and it was a ‘climb at your own pace’ segment.  We all stayed together mostly from the bottom, but our ever patient peleton rear leade rider Danny Moore decided to open up the taps and have a crack at the climb himself and no one seemed to go out with him 🙂  We followed JT for a bit as the Sunrise van was interviewing and filiming him as we rode up and they blocked the road which was great because we all had a box-seat to seeing him have a little gumby stack when he accidentally brushed the wheel in front of him due to him needing to look at the camera.  Luckily he was fine.

After that we set off and turned up the wick a little and the Lexus was driving alongside with Jules out the sunroof getting some great pics (I am sure – cant wait to get some of them) and then about 1.3kms from the top Rick Kelly was on my back wheel, we rode together for the next 800m or so then had a fun little sprint to the refreshement stop 500m up the road.  I got in front to my B pillar and had a blast.

 

The final roll was mostly down hill to Eildon, but the wet came back in and we got satched again – 6pm arrival – 12 hour ride

 

Tomorrow Melbourne and on the boat!!!

 

Daily Stats – 210kms, 2700m ascent, 310TSS Max speed 82kmh



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