The Great Victorian Bike Ride: Day Four

Mount Beauty to Myrtleford 39 miles (155 miles total).



Here's the morning that thousands of us bikers have been thinking about. Dreading, actually. The testicle/bum destroying climb up Mount Beauty first thing in the morning. Each day's ride is charted on a Route Profile that each rider was given weeks before the ride. It shows a graph of the distance and altitude and today's was a spike rising 800 meters in 9 kilometers. We were literally biking up the side of a mountain. At least I wasn't, for whatever reason, worse for wear after our encounter with Jock.

A kilometer from camp the road took an aggressive uphill posture and I peddled along at a respectable 8 miles and hour, passing people...slowly.

After about forty five minutes of trudging, I pulled over for a break and Ed was already ahead of me, sitting in the shade. Our kids were all working their way up the mountain.



Near the top we saw one of our students walking his bike up. He had broken the neck of his seat. He had to get the Sag Wagon down the mountain to camp as there were no replacement parts to be found.

As we reached the top the volunteers were playing Chariots of Fire on a little boom box and we had a good rest and water break. It took us over an hour to get to the top.

I struck a pose...


...and then we tore ass down the hill.

The ride for the rest of the day was nice and easy. I stopped along the way at a drink stand called Juice Pig and got a bottle of watermelon juice.

When I pulled up in Myrtleford (which is where we are to spend the rest day tomorrow) I was surprised that it was such a small little town. They must have put in a good bid to have the riders spend their rest day there.

We attended our first teachers' briefing and found out that 40 people had to take the Sag up the hill and there were a few crashes as people smashed into each other flying down the hill.

Ed and I made sure all the boys were accounted for and then took the air-conditioned bus to the town center for beers at the local pub, The Buffalo. We sat back, drinking icy beer and eating hot chips, all the while being entertained by two 20-something girls hustling the locals. They said they were on the ride but we never saw them, and they were throwing their boobs around like presents at Christmas. It was a wonderfully shameless display and the local gentry were vying for pole position. We quietly drank our beers and left, never to see the girls again on the ride.

Went to bed that night thinking that the hill wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I'm starting to feel more in shape. Tomorrow we get to sleep in.

Half way through the ride...