22/03/2020 – A very quick race…

Unable to sleep my 4:15 alarm was a very unwelcome surprise.I’m unsure whether it was nerves or excitement or a bit of both.

I had a quick shower as I didn’t know when the next one would be, got ready and headed out on my bike.

Steve was joining me for the ride down to the start and he’d also be cycling out to a supporter checkpoint that offered refreshments 125km in.

We picked up a couple of other riders who were also riding to the checkpoint so had a nice chat to them whilst waiting for the sun to come up.

I was amazed at the number of people at the start like seeing us off and riding part of the day with us.

After a couple of formalities like photos and speeches, the clock his 6:22 and we set off from South Mole Lighthouse. It was a nice gentle pace at the start, almost like a neutralised section.

Moving between groups and chatting to fellow riders was nice and there always seemed a lot of interest in my trip. People could follow us along at home using the GPS tracking website which was nice to know someone would always know where you were in case of emergency.

I’d been told that the race really started when we got to the first hill and sure enough, that’s where the groups started to split.

Thankfully I was up in the first group and pushed hard up the hill staying in 3rd place. It was a real lung burner and possibly had to push harder due to being heavier than almost everyone else so was happy with where I was.

I was riding with Matt from the Uk living in Sydney who was a GB junior cyclist and Jimmy Ashby who cycled around the world as a teenager so felt a little bit out of my depth.

They were great to chat to but as the morning stretched on we separated and got into our own rhythms. I was sat in second just behind Matt who was powering along on his TT set up.

The first (and only) official pit stop in York was fantastic, lots of food and drinks to stock up on. Jimmy opted not to stop here so moved up into second place.

I set off and the smile on my face was still there from the first pedal stroke. I loved cycling along deserted roads and adding in a competitive element had only made it better.

The Australian sim in my phone wasn’t working properly so I didn’t have any internet. This meant I couldn’t check the tracker map to see where the other racers were. I just kept plodding on East into a nasty headwind.

The day flew past and before I knew it the sun was going down and I was 280km into the day. I hadn’t had a proper meal yet so stopped off in a little town and got a burger and chips.

As I was finishing up 2 racers caught up to me so we rode together the next 50km to the next town together. We’d turned a corner so rather than being a headwind it was a cross rail so it felt like we were flying.

We reached the town but I couldn’t find the service station that was supposed to be there and the subway had closed. Disheartened I set off for the next town with the night drawing in but started to get a bit sleepy so pulled over to the side of the road at around 330km and put up my tent.

I only planned to sleep for a couple of hours but was so tired I slept from 10pm to 5am. Most of the racers would only be sleeping on average 4 hours a night and even less for the first few so I lost a bit of ground on some people. I didn’t mind as I was in 4th place and felt refreshed for the day.

Another glorious day lay ahead which was slightly dampened by more headwind and some road works meaning that the road quality was significantly worse that I’d hoped.

I reached the next big town a couple of hours in and was then met by 2 other riders who had caught up to me. I still didn’t have any internet so was confused when they said that the race was over.

The Australian government had decided to close the state borders due to Coronavirus meaning that we couldn’t leave Western Australia and so, the race was over.

We had some food and met up with some other riders who were riding to this town and had a nice chat. The 3 riders ahead of us ride back to this town and we set about our plans for getting home.

This wasn’t how any of us wanted the race to end but in the grand scheme of things, it’s just a race, there is always next year. There are more important things in life.