Bay in a Day - The first half

At 4.40am on Sunday the alarm buzzed and I bounced up, strapped on my lyrca, chowed down a muesli, fruit & yoghurt brekky and loaded up my pockets with muesli bars. Then slapped on some sunscreen, gave Austin a pat on the way out and coasted across town to the Hotel Formule 1 only a few blocks from the start, where the poms – Dan, Mark and Andrew – had arrived late the night before and grabbed a room. They were despondently watching England get thrashed in the rugby, and getting their gear together, so we headed downstairs - sharing the lift with a bunch of ravers coming back after a big night on the town – and took off to Alexandra Gardens and the start line.

It wasn’t hard to find with thousands of lycra-clad cyclists all pouring in one direction and we injected ourselves into the starting line-up just as the announcer said “…and there’s just five minutes to go before the start of this year’s ride!”

It was that grey early light on a clear and already very warm morning where we were comfortable in shorts and shirts (although I had the arm warmers on just in case I needed them later). We were happy and excited and apprehensive and all feeling good and raring to go!

The start wasn’t too chaotic considering the crowds, and we cruised along nicely without having to stop and start too much. The morning was glorious and for almost the entire first half of the ride we were hugging the water, from St Kilda onwards.

A few kilometres in, stopped at the lights as the sun came up over the water



The four of us cruised at a good clip, pulling in at the first rest stop, about 50km along in order to water the horses. At this stage we were all feeling very strong and happy and it had been completely flat the whole way along, no wind and getting slowly warmer. Big smiles all round!




The Felt all loaded up and raring to go for the rest of the ride


My unusual nutrition strategy. The banana was too big to fit in my jersey pockets so I taped it to the frame. Unfortunately after 50km it was looking a bit worse for wear and I was forced to eat it immediately before it smeared itself over the entire top tube and my leg.


Nothing exciting to speak of the next 50km to the ferry. We set a good speed and cycled continuously at around 35km/hour or more for this part, taking turns to break the wind and for the last 15km or so we tucked to the back of a few riders who were going at our pace and just stuck with them until Sorrento.

The lunch spot was very well organised. We arrived at 9.40 and they handed us a coloured wristband for the ferry, telling us we’d be on the 11am sailing, then as we wheeled the bikes through we were loaded up with powerbars, gels, powerade and gourmet sandwiches and cake.





It was a pretty nice spot to stop for lunch and we relaxed in a shady pavilion (the sun was really roasting by now) and chowed down. We considered taking a dip, but then Dan realised that there was a problem with his front wheel so we thought we go get it checked out, and thankfully there was a booth where they took out a spoke and straightened his wheel in five minutes.

It was about 10.20 at this point and we thought we might as well line up for the ferry. As it turned out they were just letting anyone on, so we went right on board and were some of the last people on before they closed the gates right behind us and took off. Result!





Kilometres completed at this point.