Great Vic Bike Ride, Part 1
With no idea what to expect and being completely disorganised I emptied my entire cycling wardrobe into my Thule 70L Chasm Duffel bag, just in time to hear the horn of the Navara out the front of my apartment. It was time for the Bicycle Network’s Great Vic Bike Ride!!!!
The Great Vic is a 9 day road bike ride around Victoria, exploring different regions each year. This year it was all about the South West from Koroit to Buninyong via the Great Ocean Road. Deetz and I only had time to do the 5 day option and that finished in Apollo Bay. This would actually be the furthest Deetz has ever attempted to ride in 5 days, ever! He’s been a social mountainbiker his whole life and true to the title has never been distracted by road riding. He even had to buy some slick tyres for his Giant XTC hardtail MTB as he doesn't own a road bike! I got out my Giant TCX Cyclo-cross bike for a bit more comfort compared to my road bike for the long days riding and filming.
The road trip to Koroit flew by with the excitement of getting to camp, setting up our tents and scoping out the village with a few thousand other fellow riders. The Great Vic is famous around the world for feeding up to 10,000 people every day and then moving camp to do it day after day. I must say it is impressive. A few years ago the US Army came to check out how it was done to get some insight into the process… that's how impressive it is!
Koroit has two random things going for it. Irish history and extinct volcanoes! We got on our bikes and checked out the Tower Hill sight of the extinct volcano and the first national park in Victoria (1892). It was beautiful, and randomly my mother in law, Cath John wrote and illustrated a book about the volcano. Enough history, it was time for the pub. The cracking Irish pub was a buzz with riders fueling up before the first day of riding and we enjoyed getting to know a few riders over a frothy. Then back at camp we had to warn everyone of the TV show getting filmed and to keep an eye out if you wanted to get involved. It was a mix of nervous energy, but an early night would be key with our new Tempur camping mattresses to provide the comfort.
An early start for some meant a coffee delivery was the only way of getting me out of the tent and to breakfast! We also had no idea how to pack up the tents! All was going quite slowly and I was just itching to ditch the tent and jump on the bike and go. Luckily we got some help from Bicycle Network and got on the road with the CEO Allison McCormack… We may have been last on the road, but we made up for it with enthusiasm and singing.
It was the first time that we as a crew had attempted to document an event of such a large scale. We did a reconnaissance mission a few weeks before to get a feel for the way it could work and with the radios and location sharing the plan was to get the crew to leapfrog us along the way. It was a bold strategy and right from the start it seemed to work thanks to some patient work by the crew. Deetz and I on the other hand were in a bit of a stormy situation! The rolling rain clouds would dump rain on us in short bursts and I was in a bit of trouble because I told Deetz not to wear his proper rain jacket… whoops. Anyway thanks to the storm providing a tail wind the riding was easy and we got to Noorat in good time.
Noorat was a small town also with a volcanic history. We got into camp, said thank you and goodbye to Alison and rolled around the town. Being one of the smaller towns we passed through, it pretty much consisted of a cool pub and a funky cafe, with some other old buildings dotted around. Mount Noorat lookout was very cool, but not as cool as introducing the U2 cover band Achtung Baby!!! Deetz and Alison had both seen U2 live and they swear that the cover band was better than the real thing!
Another day of riding and Deetz threw us in the deep end, volunteering to look after a bunch of school children because the pro-rider, Sarah Gigante was out of action with an injury. From Noorat to Timboon the school crew were all over the place, but we dropped them off to their teachers in one piece… mostly. Camperdown was along the way and provided a good pie and some more interesting history (for some…). The rail trail on the other side of town led us to a very fun and miniature rail ride in Cobden. As you can imagine, Deetz was frothing so hard on these fancy little locomotives! Finn, a young train driver even took a day off school to show us around… amazing.
Something that wasn’t amazing was the next section of riding with a block head wind! We almost cracked because we were so far behind the other riders that it was a lonely road to lunch. But afterwards it was full steam ahead to Timboon!
Timboon is a great little town with a range of cool things in the main street. They have a distillery, a real food scene and of course the Ice Creamery. We actually had a lesson on ice cream and got into a bit of trouble for being cheeky… The ice cream was amazing though! To end the first part of the Great Vic ride we carried on on the Timboon to Port Campbell Rail Trail to the coast. It was a very beautiful trail and the ocean was heaving!
On to part 2…
