So my best mate said we should do Around the Bay this year and so we set about assembling the group and organising transport and accommodation for the night before. Being relatively new to cycling longer distances we assembled a team for the 100km ride in from Sorento. No easy feat by all means but something the group felt more than comfortable of achieving in a day. For Bike Boy it was a breeze and even the one hill climb wasn't so horrible without gears. Yes Bike Boy rode a single-speed (48-16) for the outing. Whilst being suitably tired after the ride Bike Boy is condfident in tackling bigger distances next year, but on the other hand the "see how fast we can do the 100" option also has appeal.
The day started with a hearty breakfast from one of the local café's who were kind enough to open early for the crowd of cyclists in town. We then set off to find our starting position and luckily it was a simple case of following the group to where they were heading. The team was set and ready for our start time of 08:00 and were off and pedalling by about 08:15. It was a nice gentle start with the slower riders wanting to sprint away at the start and stay infront of Bike Boy but that provided entertainment in catching them. The cat and mouse game played out until the first rest at 25km's. Not a problem, everyone was doing really well and after a pit-stop we were on our way again. We passed some beautiful coastline scenery along the way and at a gentle pace it was nice to take it in.
After out first stop we moved into the hill sections and Bike Boy was concerned they would be his downfall. Riding a single-speed up a long steep hill is not the smartest thing to do but thankfully the hills weren't that steep for long. The team makes it to the top of Mt Martha and takes another rest before beginning the descent. This was a hoot and after the re-group at the bottom Bike Boy noticed a top speed of 71.4 km/h. That was really impressive and certainly the most exciting part of the ride. We make it to Frankston and take another rest and a quick snack where in the process of taking photos Bike Boy drops his camera. The good news is it didn't break so that was a relief.
Speaking of relief, the port-a-loo toilets that had been set up provided intersting times when wearing road cleats. A plastic floor that was wet wasn't the best place to try and stand up in.
From Frankston to Mordialloc our thoughts turned to lunch, what it would be like, would it be enough to keep us going, are we there yet. I hadn't really figured the distance so I was glad we did stop and have a snack at Frankston as if memory serves it was a little over 10km's before we got to the lunch break at Mordialloc. We turned in to a park sometime around midday and found a reasonable patch of grass to sit on to enjoy our lunch. We had a chicken sandwich with some form of browny, some of us got chocolate while others had banana. We were given some new sugar free Powerade rubbish for the drink and while I'm sure it did wonders to hydrate you I'd actually prefer to drink tap water. It was fairly ordinary and equalled in weirdness to the Powerbar gel packs we were given. Only one of the group was brave enough to try the strawberry banana combination and the results were amusing. Bike Boy still hasn't tried his and will probably have to be near starving before he does.
From lunch it was a fairly steady 40km cruise back into the city taking in Beach Road for the most part before cutting back through Port Melbourne at Pickles Street to head up City Road to the finish. We stopped a couple more times on our way back in as one of the group was struggling with a knee injury but managed to soldier on and complete the ride. Bike Boy also made a dash to find a toilet in a hurry. A fairly trouble free ride all things considered. We rode past a few cyclists who'd came of second best against the road and Bike Boy only saw one guy fall over at an intersection because he didn't clip out. Bike Boy had to laugh but is thankful that it wasn't him, it is a tricky thing to clip out in a hurry as squashing testicles is quite easy! The girl that panicked and threw both her feet out at once also should have had more practice with cleats but it provided the team with entertainment, when we weren't riding next to her anyway.
A roll through the finish was quite tame as much as I would have loved to do the sprint finish we rode the very last section as a team. We'd made the 100km's without much drama at all, not a single puncture was had nor mechanical mishap. A really good day. Bike Boy is looking forward to next year and would like to encourage anyone considering it to go for it. There are a couple of different options but the 250 is definitely a goal.
Bike Boy would like to thank the crew that got him out to Sorento and sorted accommodation. It really made the day that much more enjoyable that we didn't have to get up at 4 in the morning to make transport out to Sorento. Our thoughts now turn to a much easier event that features a ride over the Westgate, the Melbourne Summer Cycle is on again folks so get your regsitration in and join in the fun.
Thanks again team and safe riding.
Copenhagen Rides On
4 years ago
