Around The Bay, In A Day...

As posted to aus.bicycle:



Hi Folks,



our company team (Team EDS) met up with 18 of us in St Kilda Road, another 8 in Williamstown Road, and hit the queue at the bottom of the bridge at 5.25am.



As we progressed up the bridge, I had to feel sorry for the bloke who was already walking down, sporting a broken chain... Up the bridge was a nice climb to start the morning, and those orange sticks on the rubber bases look like they really hurt, judging by the reactions of the two people we saw hit them at at least 50 km/h. Hope you guys are ok!



The next leg of the ride, from Melbourne Road, through to Kororoit Creek Road was pretty uneventful, and although I know why BV had the ride diverted down the off ramps, and back up the on ramps, I think Police controlled crossings would have been more efficient.



After the ride diverted out along the official cycling route through Altona and into Werribee, we had split into three distinct groups, being our speed demons (who we didn't see for the rest of the day) our middle group, and our slow group.



Our slow group bypassed the Werribee rest stop, and picked up a nice bunch from the Clipper Group, sitting on about 32 km/h, who we sat with until we turned off the highway to head out through the back of Geelong, around the foreshore to our first stop at Rippleside, around 8.15.



After a few punctures, and a torn sidewall, the slow group arrived, had a 15 minute rest, and we picked up the pace to try and catch the 11.00 ferry.



A sore knee slowed me down a bit, until I caught a back wheel of one of our power riders, who pretty well towed me in slipstream through the Leopold hills, for the run down to Queenscliff, which we made around 10.15. On behalf of Team EDS, we hope the guy who had the heart attack around Leopold is ok!!



After queuing for what seemed like hours, we were allocated a 12.20 ferry, (our slow guys got the 14.00 ferry), given our lunch bags (did ANYONE get a PowerBar that wasn't cappuccino flavoured?), had lunch, a snooze, a walk around to stretch, and wandered down to get on the small ferry, which put us at Sorrento at about 13.30.



Heading out of Sorrento, our bunch split up again, as one of the guys had a cleat full of chewing gum and gravel (which we didn't find out about until Monday at work), over half of us grouped up, and head off, with 3-4 hanging back, while the cleat was cleaned.



Between Sorrento and Rosebud, we caught an Ericsson bunch, who were sitting on 35 or so, and shared a bit of the lead, and a lot of the slipstream most of the way to Dromana, where they pulled off for a break. Heading out of Dromana, we saw what would have been the "comedy stack" of the day, when the bunch leaders we were with decided a Barry Plant Real Estate - Open for Inspection sign was a route marker, and a traffic island was collected at

very slow speed...



The ride up to Mornington, especially Balcombe Hill sorted out any and most of our injuries, and identified any of the hill climbers with any strength left. Bunching up again, between Mornington and Frankston, my friend and I soon ended up leapfrogging between bunches and breaking out solo. approximately 15:00 into Frankston



After a 30 minute (a little too long, as shivering is a bad thing, right) at Frankston, we grouped back into approximately 12, but soon got split up by traffic lights, and the crappy road surface through Seaford.



My friend and I sat on mid 30's all the way down Beach Road, moving forward from pack to pack, amazed by how congested the traffic was.



Final arrival time at Docklands was 17:15, not long before things started being packed up.



The day went pretty much without any incident except for a single motorist just before Brighton Baths, who decided to cut my friend off, as a result of not using mirrors.



A big thanks to the Clipper Group bunch heading down the Geelong Road, the William Buck bunch between Geelong and Queenscliff, the Ericsson bunch between Rosebud and Dromana, and BV for putting a great day together again!!!



A big thanks to the remainder of Team EDS, who made the day very enjoyable!



Average Speed of 25, total distance of 214, ride time of 8 hours 14 mins.



Cheers,



Andrew