133.74km / 5:44:48 / 1871m / 11.0°C
An amusing turn of events ending up with me, with no AGF ticket, travelling to Lorne to provide Evan, who had an AGF ticket, with accommodation in the house we have access to. The gods did not smile on Evan, so he couldn’t get there, but no problem, Alex, who also has a ticket, can bring Evan’s ticket and I can ride it. Yet again the gods laughed, Alex must stay back in Melbourne working, so the two people with tickets are in Melbourne, and the one person in Lorne has no ticket. Amazingly, the AGF staff had no problem in a verbal transfer of ticket from Evan to me, so as of 5pm yesterday I was registered, albeit in Rec group 4.
With an 8am start and the last group to go on the road I got to watch everyone else, around 2500 of them, leave, then off through Lorne and up the hill to Benwerrin. Interestingly, looks as though the Strava segments for the climb are removed, I suspect from the vehemently anti-cycling locals of Deans Marsh/Colac/Lorne who object strongly to cyclists riding on “their roads” and “causing a danger”
Nice brisk climb, passing dozens, if not hundreds of the rec group 3 & 4, we may have the same average speed but I suspect I went up a little quicker, or maybe it was just familiarity with the hill.
Lovely descent down to Deans Marsh, spotted a few kangaroos off in the paddocks, then stop for the first snacks & water refills. A bit less pleasant from there to Birregurra, 8C and a headwind the whole way, then a turn to the south and head down to Bardwon Downs and on to Forrest.
A second snack stop in Forrest, then cold and misty up through the Otways with occasional rain, never enough for me to dig out the rain jacket to swap from the vest though.
Lovely descent down to Skenes Creek, sun out and temperature finally getting up into double digits and a mostly dry road
Side of the road stop at the junction with the Great Ocean Road where lots of people were taking off jackets, regrouping, getting life back into cold numb toes, then left onto the GOR for the flattish 45km back to Lorne via Grey river - nothing there - Kennett River - snack spot with vast quantities of carrot cake and food bars, and a large flock of King parrots happy to clamber all over to scoff snacks. Amazingly, it was over 20C on leaving Kennett, but dropped back down to mid-teens approaching Wye River for a little more light showers all the way back through the last 10km
Through the finish line around 2pm and found the main street absolutely packed with people and bikes everywhere and every cafe full with queues out the door. Rolled down to ’the event village’ and found it almost deserted, free food, good beer and plenty of vacant chairs. Seemed very odd, complete with huge video screens showing arrivals and their times, but nobody there watching, perhaps I was too far back at the end of the event
Enjoyed my beer, had a chat with a couple of other riders, then back on the bike through town and up the hill to the house, 6hrs and 1 minute according to the Garmin, 5hr 44min according to Strava, who knows what my AGF time was, I guess I’ll find out somehow…
Courtesy of the event photography & the ubiquitous timing chips, a personalized video of me in my ancient favourite purple groundeffect jersey, https://t6q6n.app.goo.gl/fqscB – 5hr 47min 21s
Overcast clouds, 8°C, Feels like 5°C, Humidity 73%, Wind 4m/s from WNW - by Klimat.app
My 991st day in a row riding a bike, including my and following up with all of 2021.
Garmin / Strava / ridewithgps
