After finishing the Great Ocean Walk (a week-long hike carrying all food with Mrs LWaB and a couple of friends) on Saturday, I met up with AUK hardrider Judith Swallow at the start line hotel Sunday morning. Conversation: "Are you Judith Swallow?" - "Yes, are you David Minter?" - "Yes, do you want to share a room?" - "Yes." If only this pick-up line would have worked 20 years ago! Admittedly, having mutual friends in Britain might have been a factor.
About 30 riders left Airey's Inlet at 5 pm Monday to do 1200 km, happily with a strong tailwind. Until midday, I'd thought we were going to start at 9 pm (who reads the instructions?) but worked out that we might finish the first 200 km fairly quickly and extended the room booking to include Monday night. Chatting with Nick Dale from Perth about our ride strategies during the first loop, he was much taken by the idea of snoozing before starting the 1000 km to central Victoria and back and a share of Room 9 was duly offered. A flat route and the wind dying on the return meant I managed to get round the loop only a few minutes after the first group just after 01:00, before showering and hitting the sack with a wake-up call for 05:30. Being woken by someone slipping into my double bed was promising, before realising that Judith had continued to claim the single bed. A mumbled “Sorry Nick, I’m a bit too tired tonight” and it was back to slumberland.
The Westralian/Brit pair had flown by the time I awoke, my Frezoni's wheels rolling out on the Great Ocean Road at dawn. Built between the wars to employ returned servicemen, increase tourism and to improve coastal land transport, it is one of the most scenic roads in the world, alongside California’s Pacific Coast Highway and Italy’s Amalfi Coast. I wasn’t going to miss the views by riding at night!
I was still getting used to wearing cycling shoes rather than hiking boots and never looked like catching the other 1200 km riders that morning. The only cyclists I saw before Apollo Bay were going the other way on early morning training rides, including ex-pro racer Phil Anderson, who lives nearby. A couple of spectacular roadside lookouts demanded short stops to read information plaques and look around.
The 1000 km riders started about an hour after me and I had hoped to draft a passing peloton after a particularly tough stretch that included Lavers Hill. That plan went bust when the first 1000 km pair belted past near the top of a major lump but the long downhill allowed my natural talents to come to the fore (gravity loves me). The next significant rise saw them float away, never to be seen again.
The Twelve Apostles are a group of limestone sea stacks beside vertical cliffs with the road overlooking the scene, one of the classic Australian postcards. Our Great Ocean Walk had finished there and, as on Saturday, a strong headwind slowed progress. Just then, Gary Beasley drifted past at just the right speed for me to draft most of the way to Port Campbell; knee pain was impeding his customary speed. Gary is the third generation of a Victorian racing family, all with impressive palmares. I’d previously grovelled on his wheel during a ‘90s Opperman All Day Trial when he’d lived in Queensland.
Port Campbell was the 371 km checkpoint and I was not feeling too good, despite the checkpoint volunteers’ sterling efforts. An extra hour on a couch trying to ignore the world and I was eventually ready to turn the pedals again, to Cobden this time.
As the temperature dropped and the road got flatter, the legs came alive again and I hooked up with some faster riders (mostly doing the 1000) into the cross/headwind. Coming through Warrnambool, we overtook Allan Dickson; he was a little tired from riding through the first night. I let the other blokes go on and Allan and I rode into Port Fairy Youth Hostel together at 22:15. All I was looking for was a quick shower and into bed with a 01:30 wake-up call (the control closed just after 02:00). Around 02:30 the words “I woke you an hour ago. Are you getting up this time?” were enough to drag me out of bed, my bum hitting the Brooks about an hour after the control closed.
A worthwhile tailwind is good news for riders pushing the time limit. Legs churning in the pre-dawn darkness, the brain ticked over the average speed calculations at each route instruction, “50 minutes down on closing time, 20 minutes down, etc”. Bloody hell! Why do kangaroos have negative road sense? They love sitting on the road watching bright lights rapidly approaching on a collision course. If by chance, you are on course to miss them, they bounce down the road before jinking across your path. These brainless hoppys are much worse than British badgers, being fast enough to stay beside you, looking you straight in the eye before trying to take out your front wheel!
Arriving at Hamilton with an hour in hand, the time is spent reading the paper and enjoying breakfast at an upmarket eatery, watching cyclists ride by. With mind, stomach and legs refreshed, it was a head/crosswind for the next bit. While I started off alone, some riders ahead were feeling the effects and we ended up agglomerating into a dozen-strong peloton. This let me practice my ‘peloton leader’ role for Audax Australia’s first “Audax 22.5” group brevet a week later, ensuring everybody got a decent draft as the road twisted and turned and that the speed stayed acceptable to all.
The group split up during a short stop to refuel before we started to the next lumpy section. My legs had finally got used to turning pedals and I romped along before settling down and chatting with LA's Audrey Adler and my fellow Audax Oz committee member Barry Moore on the run into Halls Gap. Audrey and Barry were the only riders to attempt both the Cascade and GSR this year; excessive heat taking Barry out of the Cascade and Audrey doing the GSR 1000 to collect the ACP’s Brevet 5000 in just over a year.
An ice cream and fruit salad lunch was just the recipe to cope with rising temperatures, before I hooked up with Room 9 cohorts Judith and Nick for the flattish out-and-back section to Moyston. This hook-up turned a good ride into a great ride; our trio riding, sleeping and joking in lockstep till the finish. After the obligatory halfway photo session, including our couple of mascots, we temporarily lost our minds during a 35+ km/h burn-up session with some strong 1000 riders.
After leaving Halls Gap again, we found kangaroos and emus pacing Judith beside the road, a change from the flattened-on-blacktop fauna she had become accustomed to. Afternoon stretched into evening, jaws kept flapping and wheels kept turning. Hitting the Hamilton 840 km checkpoint in good shape just after 9 pm, we decided during dinner to head on to Port Fairy before sleeping, drop bag locations guiding our choice.
As always, quiet roads and a moonless night leads to deep discussions and random repartee. It’s a pity I’m not nearly that amusing at parties, perhaps riding 900ish kilometres beforehand might help. Bike lights can be quite impressive nowadays; it was some time before we worked out that the slow-moving vehicle overtaking us was a couple of rocket-propelled cyclists with modern lighting. We finally rolled into the bright lights of Port Fairy around 2 am for another dinner, quickly followed by showers and sleep.
A relaxed start next morning meant we spent some time riding amongst peak hour traffic on roads without a hardshoulder but with the bonus of a solid headwind. Nick and I mostly traded turns through this bit; Judith apparently being made of Swiss cheese, at least to the comparatively tall males trying to draft her. We eventually took a breather with the excuse of buying batteries in Warrnambool. Luckily, the head/crosswind would turn into a cross/tailwind later in the day, ‘turning the corner’ near the Cobden bakery.
Once off the highway, we spent some time reeling in fellow stragglers doing the longer events but slowly lost ground to a couple of 300 km riders. Waving to 600 km riders enjoying the tailwind to the Port Fairy turn-around kept us amused. A brief shower shortly after picking AUK’s Julian Dyson (again) prompted us to drag out the rain jackets, only to stop just up the road to take them off again. Even before last year’s soon-to-be-legendary ‘soggy PBP’, I was well known to be ludicrously happy when avoiding the need for a rain jacket. With only five minutes of rain and more tailwinds than headwinds, 2008 had the best weather of any GSR and I loved it.
After a late-ish lunch at the 1053 km checkpoint of Port Campbell, the tailwind effortlessly pushed us past the Twelve Apostles at over 30 kph, the warm afternoon sun showcasing the earthy tones of the limestone sea stacks. Life can’t get much better than that, I reckon.
We were heading back to the toughest section of the course and I expected to fall apart on the lumps around Lavers Hill but riding day-after-day was obviously what I needed to get the legs singing on the uphills. I suppose my normal once-weekly short ride isn’t really enough to reach peak climbing fitness. Nick and I traded sprints for what we thought was the top of Lavers Hill but we’d forgotten the road continued to bounce up a ridge top after the main climb, so after a few sprints we declared a ceasefire. Judith effortlessly rolled along as always, never looking stressed. Doing the 1600 km Italian Mille Miglia a couple of months before must be perfect preparation for an Australian 1200. The ‘Swift Swallow’ was looking for the GSR to finish her International Super Randonneur (each ride of a Super Randonneur in a different country, no time limit) in just a couple of years, not too shabby considering her shortest event was 1200 km!
Stopping for an early dinner at the top of Lavers Hill meant we had a chilly start on the plunge to the Airey River just before sunset. The climb out of the valley reminded us that we hadn’t yet finished with the toughest part of the GSR. This section required some caution, with overhanging trees, a new moon and plenty of roadkill and tree debris littering the road surface. We were pretty happy to see the lights of the penultimate checkpoint of Apollo Bay, rolling into the Surf Club at 21:30 with 1151 km done. There was plentiful food to be had, provided by yet more of the wonderful Moore clan. Peter Moore has organised every GSR, brother Barry was riding the 1000 km and brother Andy and his family were running the checkpoint. Between them, they have eight PBPs and show no sign of stopping yet. The vague possibility of the team riding through to the finish was finally scotched with talk of night rain and darkness spoiling the scenery. That settled it, showers and sleep had won out again.
Leaving at dawn on damp roads but with dry atmosphere, the Room 9 horde swept up Paul Cribb, a former Brit now living in New South Wales, for the run to the finish. We all relished this spectacular road on the edge of the Southern Ocean, complete with tailwind.
Cyclists have a tendency to mimic sheep towards the end of a long ride. Our bakery stop in Lorne for a coffee (and to avoid a rain shower ahead) resulted in a number of following GSR riders pulling over for coffee and a feed as well. I had this weird vision of Mint Sauce-style cycling sheep following each other into the bakery for the rest of the morning and calling out “I’ll have what he’s having” in sheepish tones.
A little way down the road is the archway that marks the semi-official end of the Great Ocean Road and fortuitously one of Nick’s mates snapped a photo of four smiling cyclists riding in formation under the arch. Minutes later we rolled into the hotel driveway, finishing in about 88 hours.
Ride summary: beautiful scenery along the Great Ocean Road, some nice riding near Halls Gap, more tailwind than headwind, less than five minutes of rain, over 16 hours sleep, loads of fun. Given that this was the best-ever weather for the event, I’m unlikely to do it again but this GSR is in the top two on my list of most enjoyable 1200 km brevets. If you get the chance to to take a ride with Judith or Nick, you’re bound to enjoy the experience.
Rider progress was tracked at
Audax Australia with a live blog at
Audax AustraliaPhotos can be found at
Picasa Web Albums - Audax Victoria - GSR 2008
