Amy Gillett Memorial Ride, Geelong: 6 January 2007

What a morning! I felt sick, out of bed at 3 am, hangover, reeking of garlic. Yuk, the day had to get better than this. I rode to the airport, the first train of the day would not provide me with enough time to pack my bike and check in early. I flew with Jetstar and was worried about meeting their strict check-in policy who according to their website don’t provide bike boxes. Just get one at the Qantas Sales Desk. But someone spotted me with the bike and put it together for me so I didn’t need to wait for the Sales Desk to open. (I discovered that Jestar have bike boxes at Avalon airport.)

I was looking forward to this ride because it was a memorial ride for Amy Gillett who was tragically killed in a training ride in Germany and for other riders killed or injured on Australian roads. For more information about the Amy Gillett Foundation and its work go to http://www.amygillett.org.au/.

I was also looking for a worthy challenge, my first 100km. This 120 km ride started in Geelong’s Botanical Gardens and looped around the Bellarine Peninsula. I arrived late and stressed and it seemed to take ages to get started and my taxi driver dumped me at the wrong side of the park and I walked with my cardboard bike box for about 1km to the start line.

The ride goes through a lot of small towns on quiet country and coastal roads. The coast was lined with surfers sitting out in the water on boards waiting for the perfect waves. The course followed long stretches of undulating roads cutting through harvested fields with few trees and old country sheds on the horizon. The weather was the biggest challenge, still grey clouds then heavy rain and strong cross and head winds towards the end of the ride. Gale force winds as I walked from the Botanical Gardens to my taxi at the end of the ride, I could barely hang on to the bike box, the wind blew it violently was a walked along Eastern Road.

The ride was well organised but I would have liked to see a bit more support along the last half of the course in the future but it was fairly easy to navigate. I regret not stopping to take photos but was too rushed at the beginning and forgot to take my camera on the ride with me.