Adelaide-Melbourne Holiday
October 2002
Following riding from Melbourne to Sydney in 2001, this year the Bicycling Australia challenge ride was from
Adelaide to Melbourne. To finish off a week of pain, the day after I did the "Around the Bay in a day" ride around Melbourne’s Port Philip bay.The challenge ride ran along the coast. This avoided a lot of the heavy traffic, or at least they avoided us after being scared off by the "
beware of cyclists" signs.
Now I am a lazy sod, so I only took the camera out on the short day from Port Fairy to Port Campbell, which was however the most spectacularly scenic (ie the Great Ocean Road).
At the top of the first hill (Hall’s Gap?) was a
cliff with lake below. Some great downhill and tail wind leading into Warnambool, where we caught the only real rain of the trip during the morning tea stop.We were inland for a while passing through
dairy cattle fields, then we hit the coastal road with low shrubs leading to the cliffs. Today and the next day, we saw many of the notable structures like the ex-London Bridge, but I skipped the famous lighthouse as I was keenly aware of squandering what little energy I had left. For the whole ride there was quite a lot of wildlife to be seen, unfortunately the close up emu and kangaroo roadkill was off-putting. However at the intersection leading into Port Campbell was a very-much alive echidna. The ride finished at the Exhibition building in Melbourne.I won the prize at the this year’s dinner for "most improved rider", though I think this was entirely due to increased gravitationally enhanced downhill speeds. For those who are interested in the actual riding statistics. (average 21.8) :-
|
Description |
Date |
Distance |
Elapsed |
Ride Time |
Ave |
Max |
|
Adel->Victor Harbour |
12-Oct |
110.1 |
330 |
289 |
22.7 |
68 |
|
VH->Meningie |
13-Oct |
151 |
469 |
374 |
24.1 |
58 |
|
Meningie-Robe |
14-Oct |
193.7 |
630 |
557 |
20.8 |
39 |
|
Robe-MtGambier |
15-Oct |
135.9 |
416 |
308 |
26.4 |
57 |
|
MtGambier-PtFairy |
16-Oct |
189.4 |
588 |
539 |
21 |
53 |
|
PtFairy-PtCambell |
17-Oct |
98.47 |
334 |
270 |
21.8 |
56 |
|
PtCampbell-Lorne |
18-Oct |
142.3 |
586 |
495 |
17.2 |
70 |
|
Lorne-Melb |
19-Oct |
141.2 |
510 |
417 |
20.3 |
62 |
|
Around the bay |
20-Oct |
239.6 |
810 |
660 |
21.7 |
59 |
Compared to last years Melbourne-Sydney ride (average 19.7km/hr)
|
Description |
Distance |
Average |
|
Melb-Yea |
99.4 |
20.7 |
|
-Benalla |
140.3 |
23.3 |
|
-Beechworth |
78.2 |
21.6 |
|
-Corryong |
149.3 |
21.3 |
|
-Thredbo |
104.2 |
12.0 |
|
-Canberra |
140.0 (+bus) |
19.0 |
|
-Bundanoon |
177.0 |
21.7 |
|
-Otford |
85.5 |
20.1 |
|
-Rosehill(Sydney) |
81.1 |
17.6 (Police escort) |
Many thanks to Phil and Susan of
AllTrails for running the challenge rides.David Horton
mailto:dhorton@iprimus.com.au