The Great Victorian Bike Ride: Day Three

Tallangatta to Mount Beauty 49 miles (116 miles total).

We awoke at 5:30 in order to start the day before the heat hammered us. Today we are meeting our friend Darlene at her sister's house in the town of Mt. Beauty and then going to her folks' house for dinner. She warned us before our ride about her father, Jock, who is apparently rough as guts. Should be interesting. We were on our way quickly and told our fast boys again to score us a good spot at the next camp. The ride to the first rest stop was easy so we didn't stay long and Ed and I rode together to lunch. The planners did a great job of planning the spot as it was right next to the Kiewa River, so we had our sandwiches at the river's edge with a hundred other bikers, and then had a stroll through the cold water.



After lunch the ride was a tough uphill slog and Ed moved ahead while I chugged along at my usual pace. The ride is actually not terribly difficult once one gets into a cadence, then it's just a matter of shifting gears to keep it. As a rule I cruise along at about 25k/hr when the rode is an uphill grade.



(As a note, Ed normally doesn't have a mustache but we were part of a fundraiser called Movember, where we raised money for prostate cancer research. I shaved mine for the ride. Ed looks like a bike cop.)

Near the end of the ride there was one bastard of a hill that I had to stop on just to give my nether regions a rest. I had passed Ed earlier as he stopped to give his brother a hand fixing a tire. Ed pulled up a few minutes after me and was about as happy as I was to give it a rest. A few minutes later we were back on for the last push into Mt. Beauty. We rolled into the outskirts town and Darlene shouted out to us from her sister's front porch. It was great to see her and she told us she had been watching our boys roll into town since around 10. We stopped for about a half hour and figured out our plans.

We rode to camp where our boys had claimed a stake at home plate of a softball diamond. (This is increasingly becoming a challenge for our boys as no one is permitted to set up camp until noon, due to safety reasons with the semi rigs negotiating the grounds. Our boys snuck in through a neighboring backyard and staked our claim, right under some nice shady trees. They are becoming our Special Forces team, negotiating themselves through enemy territory).

Once there, we were soon in the back seat of Darlene's car as she and her son, Tom, drove us to the local swimming hole. Man, it was awesome. A cold river with kids swinging in from a rope and crayfish scuttling about...just like home. A perfect antidote to the blazing sun and heat.

Eventually we made it to her parents' house for the most memorable night of the entire ride. We arrived, laden with dirty clothes to wash and a taste for barbecue.

What we got was Jock. Jock was sitting at the kitchen table with Darlene's mom, rolling cigarettes between fingers the size of bratwursts. The house was an old weatherboard throwback to the 60s, with furniture and add-ons comfortably thirty years out of date. Jock is in his 60s, a retired cop still wearing a brush cut of white hair, and he immediately offered us a couple of beers. We were aware that tomorrow morning we were straight up Mt. Beauty itself, which is a daunting task sober, let alone feeling a bit filthy from a night of drinking. Jock regailed us with stories of how he got Darlene's boyfriend drunk and had him throwing up all night when he was 15, of how the bathtubs he turned into water features out the front of the house will add thousands to the value of his house, of how there is no place better in the world to live than Mt. Beauty, and of how Americans are dicks. This is a man who instilled a healthy sense of fear in us as he gave us beer after beer after beer. He goes through a case himself nightly.

After our laundry was finished I hung them on the line to dry at the house next door. Jock's daughter and son-in-law Marty lived there. Marty had survived a three story fall off a house where he broke his back, a chainsaw to the face, and had lost three of his fingers in an industrial accident. Marty wasn't to be fucked with. I was told how Marty was a truck driver "who fucking hates bikers" before I slipped over to hang up all our nice little lycra pants and shirts. As I was doing so I heard a shout from inside the house and then a bear of a man opened the back door and just stared at me.

"Who are you?"
"I'm Nick, I'm with Jock. We're having a barbecue." (please don't destroy me).
"Oh."

We shook hands and I went back to Jock's where I was fed another beer and Marty came over as well.

As the night wore on I grabbed a Coke to pace myself and Jock looked at me like I was The Biggest Pussy The World Has Ever Seen, and proceeded to start getting hooked into me before his wife stopped him. We sat around the table on the back porch of the house, discussing all things simple, and Marty provided his first-hand accounts of his hatred of bike riders, and then left. He didn't want to be around Ed and I.

As it grew dark more of the family came over and Jock became increasingly surreal in his ramblings, mentioning with utter passion how eating gnats out of the hair of a woman was the finest meal he has ever had. Ed and I just sat back, eating as much as possible, winding Jock up, and drinking more beer. Ed got his second wind eventually, raised his empty beer bottle, and looked at Jock with disbelief on his face and shouted out, "Jesus, Jock. A man is not a camel! Can I get some beer around here!" I had a good laugh about this but was unfortunately obliged to have yet another beer lest I become He Who Must Be Ridiculed.

At one point a little later a foul smell wafted by us and we were told that it was the sewage plant across the road.

"Yeah, when the surface isn't dry you can smell it." Jock said.
"So this is the best place on earth, eh?" I thought.

At one point Ed brought up "Chop Chop". This is an illegal crop of tobacco grown out here that is hush hush. People have been killed more than once due to its ties with the mafia. Jock got stuck into Ed dropping more than one, "What the fuck do you know about it?" before Ed let it go.

When we got to the point where it was too dark to see, Jock had verbally abused most of the people sitting with him, the other men had run out of sexist jokes, and we were afraid to drink any more, we decided we needed to go. We were saying our thank-yous, and as I shook Jock's hand, he raised a machete above his head and leered maniacally at me in the darkness.

"Holy Shit!" was the last thing Jock heard, or will ever here, from me.

Me, Ed, Darlene and Tom walked back to the campground and Darlene looked at me.

"So. Do you understand why I hate my father? Do you see why I ran from here when I was seventeen...screaming?"
"Yes. Yes I do."

I have no idea how such a lovely, kind, gentle person like Darlene could have sprung from the loins of such an absolute bigoted lunatic.

Ed and I crawled into the tent, relieved that we only had to bike up the side of a mountain tomorrow. I only hoped I wasn't hung over while doing it. Even if I was, it seemed less intimidating now.

After all, I survived Jock.

The Great Victorian Bike Ride: Day Two

Beechworth to Tallangatta 42 miles (67 miles total).

On the second day of the ride we were up at 5:30 in order to get some miles behind us before the blistering heat arrived. We had a big bowl of musli with fruit, packed up our camp, saw the last kids off, and were on the road by 7:45. Our fst kids were on the road by 7:15.

We have a system: the fast kids arrive at camp around 10-10:30. They get our bags off the truck and find a spot to camp at the next site under a nice piece of shade. If there's no shade at least keep us upwind of the shit truck. The toilets, like the showers, are housed in huge semi-trailer rigs, and when they change the "resevoirs" it can be mighty painful to be anywhere near them.

Our first 50 minutes of the ride were cool and downhill and the flies were kept at bay. It was such a welcome change. We arrived fresh and happy at a little town and grabbed a coffee.



Our next stop miles down the road was lunch. A town park was the site and it was covered by bikers. We had our official badges around our necks and lined up under a little tent for our sausage sandwiches, fruit and cheese, and then filled up our water bottles. I am still amazed at the organization of this whole thing. everywhere we stop everything is ready for us, and when we leave it all follows.

We had a challenging up and down ride and arrived at camp at 12:15 in the full sun and the 90+ degree heat. Our camp was setup by the boys at a lovely spot next to some hills. It was too hot to be out so we went to the local town pool for a few hours. The pool was an oasis. It was like the pool scene from Caddyshack-a bunch of goofs land on a pool for hours. I doubt it saw this many people in it all of last year. Within a couple hours the water was murky from all the sunscreen that had been on all the bikers.

Ed and I strolled into town for a beer and watched a little of the Ashes Test.
(The Ashes is the cricket test series played between England and Australia every other year for the past 120 years. It is the most important match for both countries as it is effectively a game between the Brits who proudly created cricket hundreds of years ago and Australia, the former penal colony who have become the best team in the world. There is a good explanation of the Ashes here.) A Test Match in cricket last five days. There are five matches in a series. Yep-a cricket test can last for 25 days, with each day about 10 hours long.

Ed was patient in his explanation of the series and cricket in general. As a Yank who loves baseball (a combination of Rounders and Cricket) I actually enjoy watching the game. There's a hell of a lot more going on than one would think and there is a lot of strategy. There should be with all the time they have. I witnessed a batsman at bat FOR EIGHT HOURS in this test. Most baseball players are already on the plane to their next city by then. This guy had to focus on hitting the ball for EIGHT HOURS!

At about 9pm we were back in our tents. The boys were most likely roaming the grounds scouting out the thousand girls here as well. I fell asleep listening to a quitarist playing a brilliant version of Bad Moon Rising in the main tent. A good day.



Tomorrow we will be in Mount Beauty where we will be catching up with a friend from work whose family still live in the area.

The Great Victorian Bike Ride: Day One

The Great Victorian Bike Ride is an annual event held throughout the state where riders of every skill and ability come together to become a part of a giant moving carnival of gears, sweat, and a good time. It is an exercise in logistics and insanity as thousands of riders pay for the thrill of biking in 110 degree heat up the side of mountains...over nine days. I couldn't help but think that Aussies do these kinds of things out of a sense of guilt that the country was established by convicts dragged in ships from the UK, forced to do painfully tough labor, in a land designed in almost every way to kill off those who want to settle here. Australia is now such a clean and lovely place that, at least in my humble opinion, those with a conscious tend to put themselves through a healthy dose of physical strife just to balance the books.

This year my school took eleven boys on the nine day ride through the alpine region of northern Victoria. We had kids who had bikes that weighed as much as shadows and who themselves were nothing more than bone and muscle, and we had kids who, by my estimation at the beginning, wouldn't make it through the first lunch stop.

Day One: Wangaratta to Beechworth 40k (25 miles).
We arrived at the leaving point in Wangaratta at 1:30 and were the last group out of the 3,740 people to get on the road. By the time we got off the bus to hit the road the temp was already in the 90s. The ride started with a slight uphill grade and then, after about 12 miles, pitched itself on its hind legs and drove us at a ridiculously steep grade for our first day. I was one of the last on the ride. In the baking heat my pace was just slow enough that my face became a landing site for countless flies. After a few hours I was wondering how in the name of god I will be able to finish nine days of this grinding riding. The steepest hill of the day loomed ahead of me and I slowly, with persistent pedalling, managed to reach the top just in time for one of the escort motorcycle cops to puul up next to me. Mouth agape, sweat pouring down, flies darting in and out of my mouth and nose, I turned to hear...

"You from Southwood?"
"Yeah"
"You've got a boy back there about a k who doesn't look too well."
"Oh. Really. Well. I can stop." huff huff "He'll be here soon."
"No mate, you need to go back there and check him out."
"Oh. Okay."

He sped off and I looked at the top of the hill and then, with concern for the boy somewhere driving my back, I sped back down the hill. At least the wind kept the flies off for a few minutes.

There he was sitting on the side of the road telling me he was fine. He draped his lanky frame over the bike and started again to pedal. He stopped about 100 meters up the road.

We did this for almost 45 minutes. This increased the heat and flies.

When I realised there was a chance that he might actually expire, either from heat stroke, or from me pushing him off the cliff for keeping me stuck on this goddamn frying pan of a road, I signaled the SAG Wagon, which carries riders and their bikes to camp when they can't go any further. He pulled up next to me.

"There's a tall kid back there from Southwood. He might tell you he's fine, but he's not. Get him and take him to camp please."
"Right-o"

A few minutes later the SAG pulled up next to me and the driver rolled down his window, student in the rear, and yelled out with a big grin.

"You should hear him in here mate, he's paying out on you for being slow. C'mon. Pedal faster!"

I had a good laugh as sweat, or a tear, rolled down my face as they pulled out ahead over the next hill.

I rolled into town and then up one last ridiculous hill to get to the camp. I flopped off my bike and walked the length of the grounds to our camp, surrounded by a thousand other tents. It was shady, clean, and there was a water station greeting me at the gate.

My fellow teacher, (and leader of this excursion) Ed, had our tent set up and he directed me to the semi-rig that was our showers. An hour later I was clean and we lined up for a surprisingly fantastic dinner under the huge main tent. We finished it off with a beer and had a chat about how the boys did then headed back to our camp. I sat on a small camp chair watching the sun go down behind the beautiful mountains.



They were playing the movie Kenny tonight under the big tent and Kenny himself was going to open it (Kenny will most likely open in the US as it is actually a great Aussie comedy about a septic guy that made a fair bit of money.).

I was too tired to go and fell asleep at about 8:30, to the lovely sounds of a farting contest transpiring in the girls school's tents next to ours. Go St. Lukes!