F2-Day 2: Geelong to Port Campbell

A guest ride by Cadel Evans - what an absolute highlight!!

WOW! Day 2 was a massive honour to ride with cycling royalty - Australia's only Tour de France winner, Cadel Evans. It was an absolute highlight of my cycling career and an opportunity to get the smallest of insights into the pro-world and their training regime. Cadel is just about to finish his off-season and start the training proper for his last 15 weeks as a professional. His next race is the Australian National title, which despite his palmares and a World Championship under his belt, the National title has eluded him. As he said, it's a pretty tough ask when you are up against 15 GreenEdge riders! 

Team Bravien's, Andrew Zietara (AZ), sent an email to Cadel Evans’ manager about 2 months ago to see if there was any chance of him joining us for part of the ride. Cadel lives near Geelong and he is almost always back from Europe at this time of the year. His availability was confirmed only 2 nights ago and the excitement was palpable amongst the group as word spread. It gave me the chance to throw the book above into my bag before leaving home. It's the same book I took to the Tour de France last year, and to Tour Down Under this year with not even a remote look in to have Cadel sign it. So after carrying this book around the planet his response was, "I don't know why you didn't just come down to Geelong"! Well - here we are!!

He was an absolute gentleman and very generous with his time, handling the minor mobbing with aplomb, showing true patience as things were brought forward for his signing, and the obligatory selfies were shot.

We left Geelong around 8.30am, heading out as one group with Cadel on the front so everybody could meet him as they rolled through. He rode with us for about 30km, chatting to everyone as if it was the most normal thing to do. The smiles on people’s faces as they rolled back was one of the highlights of the day. 

And then, when he'd had enough, he said his goodbyes, wished us all the best and headed home with the wind at his back to clean the house!

And for us, it was time to break into groups and face the full block headwind all day for our remaining 130k. After yesterday's warm and sunny day, it was cool, cloudy and looking threatening. Our group fairly quickly moved into a rolling pace line to get things moving and we managed a reasonable pace for the next 2 hours.

It was when we rolled into Colac that we heard about the crash in group 2. Buffeting winds, inexperience in bunch riding and some fatigue were all big contributors...but luckily no one was seriously hurt and only one wheel was destroyed. (It got fixed the following morning).

By pure fluke we managed to pick the best bakery in town, run by some lovely Afghan people who had some spectacular pastries and great coffee. I can highly recommend the apple turn overs and the smartie cookies (a Friday morning family favourite from Fyshwick markets!).

It's really important to eat quite a bit when you're doing the distances we are - 165k today. We refuel on the go eating muesli bars, bananas, jam and cheese sandwiches and plenty of water. Most of this is carried in your jersey pockets and it's pretty easy (with a bit of practice) to reach into your back pocket and grab a bite to eat. As a reminder, I have an alarm (single beep) set on my Garmin GPS bike computer every 20 minutes. If you don't eat something at least every 20-30 mins in a 4-5 hour ride, you will run out of energy and hit the wall - or in cycling terms "bonk".

Basically, even with all the will power in the world, once your body has run out of available energy stores, you're stuffed and the pedals turn no more. You can generally feel something like this coming on and that's when you smash an emergency energy gel, which is pretty much a massive sugar hit and sometimes contains caffeine too. It will get you through a rough patch, but it won't save you if there's still 50km+ to go.

The boys feeding on the go.

It was only in the last 15k before Port Campbell that we got to see glimpses of the coastline...and tomorrow we shall ride the Great Ocean road. See the ride here!

Once we got in, it was quick showers, relax, EAT to refuel for tomorrow, clean the bikes, wash the riding kit, swap photos and tell stories about how well you rode and how much it didn't hurt and how hard the wind blew. Then SLEEP!

What a great, great day...

Watch the video HERE!

F2-Day 1: Melbourne to Geelong

It was an early start this morning with the alarm going off at 5.30am. Although to be fair that's a sleep in because at home I usually need to be up at 5.10am in order to make the 6am bunch ride.

It was a quick pack up, get the gear downstairs and then we, Team Bravien, were off to Flinders Lane to find a cafe for breakfast.

We found said cafe on Centre Place and whilst the boys smashed bacon, egg and cheese muffins, I had a raspberry and white chocolate muffin with a piccolo.

Formal proceedings had us leaving from the Melbourne Treasury building - the very place  where we finished the 2012 Wheel Classic. The Victorian Treasurer said a few words, as did Steve Helmich, the Chair of Future2. And then, we were away.

We rode as a group through the tight streets of Melbourne until we hit Frankston. Typically slow due mostly to traffic lights, and we copped a lot of reds.

Onto the famous Beach Road and just as we started to get our roll on, I got a rear flat - a nasty pop rivet straight through the crest of my brand new turbo tyre. Unfortunately that pop rivet dinged the Tarmac's carbon frame a little - but that's riding bikes. And quite frankly, that was minor damage compared to Julien who managed to hit a traffic cone, drag it, collide with a metal pole and then throw himself, and his bike, down the road. OUCH!! His souvenir will be a delightful case of gravel rash all down his left hand side. He's "fine" and still covered the remaining 80k.


On the upside, we changed my rear flat at a servo and this gave me the opportunity to explain this great cause we are riding for to a few people who were refuelling. And that resulted in a few more gold coin donations - every little bit helps for Future2.

So this is the point where we split into groups:

• the first group contains the most experienced and generally quicker riders,
• the second group is the largest in number who travel slightly slower than the former, and
• the third group who contains the least experienced and somewhat slower riders - and Peter Bobbin aka The Bobbinator (back for his 5th wheel classic)

Team Bravien ride Group 1 as we like to stick together for support. That way, Gerard can have his flat's changed for him, AZ can suck wheels, Mitch can drive the pace and Jez can sprint for town limits (2 from 2 today!!).


It was nice to get the group rolling along towards Sorrento and with a lovely tail wind heading south, there were times when we easily sat on 50km/h. That always feels good! So after the slow start out of Melbourne, we managed to get the average speed back to 30km/h by the day's end.

Sorrento gave us the opportunity to rest up a little after 106km ticked off. We caught the 12 o'clock ferry to Queenscliff where disembarkation would see another 40-odd kms until we reached our destination of Geelong. During the ferry ride I needed to fix Craig's bike which had been put together badly - basically, the handlebars and steerer were not connected properly to the fork which holds the front wheel in place and connected to the bike. Hmmm, let's face it, you don't have to be a pro rider to recognise that's a fairly important part of the bike to get right!! Anyway, it was sorted enough to get him home to Geelong where a bike shop could sort it properly.

Ray, AZ, Mitch, GT, Roger Dodger and I lined out and took track turns to finish up nice and quick for the run home. (Track turn: about 500m at a time at the front of a single line of riders and then rolling to the back to rest before coming through again). See the ride details here. 

Everyone rode strongly today and we had a great time on the predominantly flat parcours. Although I think we would all agree that Gerard's banana only nutrition plan did not, ummm, go exactly to plan. Let's just say he will be supplementing his banana plan with other food groups tomorrow!

When we got off the ferry it was 25 degrees. When we got to our finish some 40kms later, it was 33 degrees. Thankfully a little shop at the Big4 Tourist Park had Coke, coffee and jam tarts - that'll sort out the post-ride fatigue (thanks Mitchie)!

...and to finish off the day we spent a great night out at the Belmont Hotel where I could not go past the MASSIVE chicken parmi (and garlic bread, calamari, beetroot salad and several bottles of tonic water). Mitchie provided the pièce de résistance in the form of a Golden Gaytime! BOOM! That's how we roll...

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE!

F2-Day 0: Melbourne Town

Well here we are again! The 2014 Wheel Classic is ON and Team Bravien is rolling from Melbourne to Adelaide to raise funds for the Future2 Foundation. 7 days, 1,100km and aiming to raise $100,000. 

WAIT!...already smashed it...!! 

As I write, not a pedal has been turned in anger, and we've hit $112,000 and counting...great result for the foundation, which will use the funds to give grants of up to $10,000 to disadvantaged young people in order to help them establish a project, build a community and break the cycle of welfare...it's very cool.

I packed the steed up this morning, which is always a nerve wracking experience. All the foam, bubble wrap and love in the world won't save a few millimetres of rather expensive carbon frame from an angry baggage handler. It could be busted spokes, a broken rear derailleur or who knows what? Never-the-less, unlike my France experience last year, all arrived safe, on time and in one piece...phew!

My weapon of choice for this ride is the Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL4 running 40mm carbon Roval rims and S-Works 700x24mm Turbos. Steered by 3T carbon Team Ergonova bars and powered with Dura-ace 9000. (Did I lose you?)

Veloci-Raptor (/vɨˈlɒsɨræptər/; meaning 'swift seizer' is his name. And when it comes to bike racing - that means seizer of opportunity and victory. Velo: French for bicycle.

The Raptor

As Lockheed Martin says: "The combination of stealth, speed, agility, precision and situational awareness, combined with unbelievable combat capabilities, makes The Raptor the best overall fighter in the world today". Can't argue with that!

Melbourne provided the perfect opportunity for a pre-ride caffeine tune up - check; a spot of retail therapy - check; and a catch up with old friends and new at the pre-ride briefing - check. About half the crew are back for more from previous years and half are brand new fresh meat...they are in for a treat.

I'm really looking forward to the ride tomorrow around Port Phillip Bay to Sorrento and then onto the ferry across the bay for the final 40kms to Geelong. It's a total of around 140km for Day 1 so a tasty little entree and no mucking around. Much like my dinner actually - a delicious home made pasta with lamb ragu, just sublime and the perfect pre-ride carbo load...

I'll introduce the Team Bravien crew as we go - suffice to say that me, Gerard, Mitch and AZed are raring to go and ride we will...like lions! 

I'll also provide a link to each day's ride - today's was an epic 650m in order to test the bike assembly - view the ride here!! (Gerard, true to his standard form, had me assemble his steed too, and test ride it! That's OK because we had awesome phone support from George at Bike Culture in Canberra).

And finally, I'll be posting links to video of our daily adventures - the night before is HERE.

If you haven't had the chance to donate a couple of dollars to this brilliant cause, please click here, because the more support we have, the better the opportunities will be to help out young Aussies.

Sleep tight y'all for tomorrow we roll!