Don:

What a Day!!
Up at 4.15am, met at Ben's at 5am - way too early, had to stop at Macca's for pancakes just to kill time. Rego 7am, start of ride 8am.
We were given a map of the 140km route, so we thought it would be easy to follow!!!!!!!!! Started off, all going well for the first 1.2km, then came to our first incline. I decided to test my new rear cluster (thingamajig at back of bike with gears on it), chain fell off straight away and I found myself falling with feet still in cleats, oops fell over!! Good start to the ride. Got up and we tried to catch up with the pack, but with not being used to hills, gave up after about l00m, HRate 170 at this stage. Rode as a group for the rest of day, until we 1. got lost, 2. came to the first hill, 17km long altogether. Met at top and then descended to Healesville at 60kph. Some of the gang had had enough of the wind and hills by this stage, so myself and Jocelyn attacked the last hill, 15km long, aaaggghhh should have stopped with the others! An hour later, I got to the top with my main concern the pro's coming over the top of me (we only had a 2 1/2 hr head start). Got to the end with 5 minutes to spare. Bring on next year!! (this Crown tastes great while typing).

Jocelyn:

We had a great day, all in all, although it had its ups and downs (literal and figurative). The course was tougher than we had anticipated, with the "flat" sections on the race profile turning out to be more than a little undulating, and a strong wind that blew from every direction, except behind us; but at least there was beautiful scenery to admire and, for the most part, quiet roads, especially on the two major climbs. These wound though forests, which were a welcome relief from the sun, which chose this of all days to turn on the heat for the first time this spring. The organisation was not the best and we felt that very little was provided for our money in terms of support - the route markers were little more than hand-drawn arrows on plain white cardboard and not at all obvious, and there was only scant marshalling at two of the corners (where one would have no hope of finding the right direction); and there was no food or water en route, except back in town. Since, thanks to the aforementioned bad signage, we missed the short 14km loop that took one back into Healesville for this, we ended up having to fend for ourselves, with not too many shops around. The one we found at the top of the first long climb into Toolinga was a very welcome oasis and was clearly doing a roaring trade with the hungry, thirsty cyclists. We certainly weren't the only ones to miss the loop into Healesville, or the only ones to be a bit surprised (putting it nicely) by the lack of support, but I think that, like us, people were so happy to be out cycling in new and idyllic scenery that they forgave the organisers this negligence. It was great training and, chatting over coffee and recovery nutrition at a local cafe afterwards, we all decided that we definitely wanted to come back to the area more often to get away from the interminable Beach Road and accustom our legs to continuous hills.

Ben:

Well, the course profile in the paper was wrong.  It said that there were flat bits, well, I didn't see any......  Hot, windy and hilly, that about sums it up.  Good day, but maybe with a little more signage next year.

Glen:

5am meeting at Ben's......memo to Ben- not 2 hrs to Healesville. Good challenging ride....good change from the Beach Rd rides. By the way Anthony looked after the ride, I'm glad I didn't try to keep up with him!!! Excellent day, bring on next year!

Beata:

"Are we there yet", was all I could think of all day!!!
I was looking forward to the flat bits, only to be very bitterly disappointed to have a very strong head wind when we did reach them!!! Overall it was a great challenging day.....when's the next trip???