F2-Day 5: Mount Gambier to Kingston S.E.

One of the things that's so very nice about this sort of tour is the camaraderie, silly stories and giggling like school girls until all hours. To be frank, most of the content is not repeatable - boys telling tall tales and egging one another on to get the biggest laugh. So it was a latish (lad-ish) night but once I was out - I was out like a light. Over 600kms in a week will do that to you!

Mout Gambier: Blue Lake Tourist Park 

The first wake up was about 5.50am, which is almost exactly half an hour before I've been waking up this tour...I blame the cross border 1/2 hour time difference. Mitchie was up and at 'em and made everyone a lovely cup of tea. Then we smashed the hedgehogs and finger buns he picked up at the bakery the night before...and then it was off to actual breakfast for muesli, and THE WORST yeast extract spread ever on bread with cheese. Basically, this spread tastes like you've coated your tongue with a beef stock cube straight out of the foil wrapper. But, we are hungry and there's 180k in front of us so beef it up boys - and beef it we did!

After the standard briefing it was a day to form back into groups and roll this 180k to Kingston S.E. (we've never found out what the S.E. actually is). Quite frankly the ride was uneventful - long, straight, flat roads with nothing to see along the way due to the coastal scrub. It was smooth and fluid turns up front though with me, Mitch and Ray pulling turns for about the first 70k and then Thomas finally deciding to join in. Big kudos to AZed, GT, Rog and Bindy Pete who hung on well in the cross winds as speeds often hit 38-40kmh.

At the halfway point we hit Beachport and managed to find a great little cafe. SCONE TIME!!! Coffee, coke and general refuelling. GT was a bit busted so he missed the jetty shots. : (

The Raptor at Beachport

After about a 40 minute refuel and photo sesison we got rolling again as poor Ray was getting anxious. He HATES stopping and so we've been encouraging him to relax, enjoy the cycle-tourism style of this charity ride (did I mention you can still donate here!) and generally smell the roses. Apparently stopping makes his chest get cold...so we put him in the sun!

Pretty quickly the pace was back up to 35kmh and despite the lack of scenery on the road - the riding was smooth and really enjoyable as the front four took turns rolling over so cohesively.

Two things had to happen sooner or later:

1. Someone at the back was going to pop, and
2. The attack for the Kingston S.E. town limit was going to erupt.

The former happened at 150k when GT's little engine said no more. We eased up to get him  within 7k of home, protected from the wind. This set the tone for the finish and Ray made the first move at 6.5k to go. The attack was non-violent but only Thomas and I had the legs to go with him. At the left hand corner I was in front and got a gap, I pushed on and Ray made a big effort to jump back across the gap and onto my back wheel as we headed up an incline into a block headwind.

We gapped Thomas and took fast racing turns as we entered the last 3k...then a hiccup - we had no idea where we were going! So we stopped while I loaded up the Garmin map which allowed Thomas to rejoin - and so as soon as the map loaded, we attacked him again straight away. He made a great effort to get back on but then some race cunning from me forced him into a rookie error and he went to the front. (As T-Bird always taught me - never put your nose into the wind until you see the finish line!)

As soon as Thomas got that lactate build up in the legs, he flicked the elbow (indicating he wanted someone to come through and work) I gave him 50 more metres, saw the falter and then I attacked with Ray on my wheel. Down to 2 again with about 1.8k to go and it was clear our back way into town meant no sign to sprint for. So with a tail wind for the first time in days, I called a silver coloured car (about 200m up the road) the finish - Ray agreed - as you do at 45+kmh - and it was GO! Ray didn't have the legs so another pay day for Team Bravien and we carried home the chocolates!!

Great times...and a brilliant ride by all. See the ride here...

Once we were all in, the teamwork began immediately - Mitch got food, I washed all the bikes and water bottles, AZ washed the clothes/kit, and Tiffy...ummm...Tiffy did ummmm, OK he did stuff all as usual!

I went down to cool the legs off in the water - it was surprising mild - and no Great Whites!! YAY!! Here's the vid on Vimeo...

P.S: Shari and Mitch had a snuggle!!