Time to cast our minds to Lorne, in preparation for Amy's Gran Fondo. It's one of the events that both Miss V and I look forward to each year. Seeing the whole town come alive with thousands of cyclists, and seeing the support of the local community is simply amazing. Couple that with one of the best cycling events of the year, and it's hard to go past Amy's Gran Fondo. As previously, Miss V made a weekend of it, planning to arrive on the Friday and leave on the Monday, giving us ample time to enjoy our time in Lorne.
This is a consolidated post covering all the stuff we did, so it's probably a long read. If anyone is thinking of heading over, have a read about what the weekend is like. I'd highly recommend getting over there if you have the opportunity.
Preparation and Travel
In the lead up to this year we thought that we might be a little underdone in preparation, so to ease our minds that we were up to the task we planned a couple of weekends to have some training rides. First training ride went pretty well, so we were filled with confidence that we'd do ok. Thoughts were even being entertained of beating a few personal best times at the Gran Fondo.Then the mother of all colds hit us both, and sidelined us both for about two weeks. Two weeks off the bike is not ideal preparation to say the least. So thoughts of achieving PBs now changed to "will I even be able to start?". Slowly but surely we were on the mend, so with about one week to go we pottered around the house getting all of our gear ready, still trying not to overdo things. A last minute wheel service by the friendly folks at BMCR (Thanks heaps guys!) put my mind at ease that at least my bike was ready for the trip.
In the back of our minds was whether we'd be recovered enough to complete the distance, avoiding all the time cut offs around the course. These worries were compounded by a scan of the revised cut off times for this year. Our start time was to be about half an hour later than previously, which wasn't much of a problem for the most part since they'd moved the time cuts the same amount of time back; except the last one. So this one had me a little worried. All the same, with the health concerns, we figured we'd simply ride and enjoy it for as long as we could, even if we were pulled from the course!
Friday morning arrived and as the alarm went off at an ungodly hour, we both struggled out of bed, still coughing and spluttering. Clearly a picture of health. We managed to get ourselves ready in a semi respectable time, load up the car and get ourselves out the door. Probably about an hour later than we had planned, but we were rolling. Unfortunately we figured that the late start would mean that we couldn't do much in the way of sight seeing on the way over, and instead of a scenic drive along the Great Ocean Road we'd have to just take the highway.
As we travelled further east, the weather progressively became more gloomy. Weather forecasts for the weekend didn't look entirely positive with showers expected most of the weekend, so expectations that we'd be getting wet over the weekend were starting to gather momentum. None of that was damping our enthusiasm though, at least, not while we were comfortably shielded from the elements in the the car. After all, we're on holidays! Time to let go of all the work and life stresses for a while.
We arrived in Lorne at about 7:30pm local time, which gave us plenty of time to settle in to our room at the Coachman Inn before heading out for a meal. We chose the tried and tested Chopstix noodle bar for our meal, who have never failed to provide us with a tasty and filling meal.
Saturday
Waking up and peeking outside we were greeted with a fairly dreary looking day. Somewhat expected, given the forecasts, so we weren't going to let an overcast and breezy day ruin our spirits. Saturday tends to be a bit of a busy day on these Lorne trips, with us trying to fit in as many things as possible, including a bit of a shakedown ride.First thing was to take care of breakfast. The last two years we've treated ourselves to a delicious breakfast at the Lick and Sip Cafe, so we saw no reason to break from tradition. Big Breakfast and a freshly squeezed OJ coming right up! Oh Yeah! The sound of bicycle freewheels was pretty much everywhere as groups of riders were heading out and returning from their respective rides. Some looking fairly serious, while others taking it a little bit easy and enjoying the scenery. I don't think our trip would be quite the same if we didn't indulge ourselves with a relaxing breakfast here. Suitably recharged, we headed back to the hotel to reassemble our bikes and get ourselves ready for a ride.
We rolled out of the hotel not really knowing how things were going to go. Both of us still weren't 100%, so the plan was, above all else, not to overdo it. We couldn't see any point in having an amazing Saturday shakedown ride if we were too exhausted to ride on the Sunday!
We took it fairly easy, more of a sightseeing trip than a training ride. A very basic out and back along the Great Ocean Road. Anywhere else would involve significant hills, which I don't think either of us were prepared for! There were a few stops on the way to take photos and generally lap up the sights and sounds of the Great Ocean Road.
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| Grave site for the unfortunate salvage crew of the W. B. Godfrey |
Our total ride was a leisurely 33km, which I think was a nice distance for us to roll the legs over, enjoy the sights and not completely drain ourselves.
With a few hours to spare before our safety briefing, we headed to the event village to pick up our Gran Fondo kit. Unfortunately this turned out to be more problematic than it could have been, since they had no record of us purchasing anything. Fortunately both Miss V and I printed our receipts, so we eventually got our kit.
While we were waiting around we bumped into Mary Safe (Amy Gillett's mum). It's always good to bump into her and her husband Denis at these events (though Denis was MIA due to recently causing himself a bit of a mischief) since it's these people who have taken what must still be an enormous personal tragedy, and turn it into a positive event which attempts to better our society through improved road safety. Amazing people.
We decided to try to get into an earlier safety briefing than we'd signed up for, which turned out to be a wise choice given the line up for the later sessions. Once we were through that we headed to watch the new event "Amy's Wall". 110m of climbing with up to 20% gradients. I'm not sure my legs could stand such torture, but maybe one day I might have to try to ride up there in my own time.
On the way back from Amy's Wall we stopped by Chopstix to grab some dinner before heading back to our room. A few final preparations like attaching our numbers to the bike and helmet and we were all set for the big day. Time for some sleep!
Sunday - Amy's Gran Fondo
The big day! This is what awaited us:
I don't think I slept all that well, so waking up wasn't too difficult. I think I was partially concerned with the cut off times. Odd really since we we were told in the safety briefing that if riders missed the final cut off time at Deans Marsh would be allowed to continue, but under open road conditions. So there seemed little reason to stress!
A peek out of the window revealed something awesome; clear skies, no wind! None of this was forecast, and it was nothing like the weather we had on the drive over on Friday, nor the weather on Saturday. We got ourselves ready, made a couple of final checks and headed down to the start area.
While waiting for the start we bumped into Adelaide celebrities, The Smudge Monkees. So we sat around having a bit of a chat, with everyone looking and sounding pretty relaxed. For Miss V and I, given our recent health issues, just getting to the start line astride a bicycle seemed like a massive win all by itself.
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| Happy to be here! |
Changes to the start process meant that we got under way a little quicker than in previous years, which was a good thing mentally since it gave us a few extra, precious, minutes to get to Skenes Creek before the cut off. Realistically. it was never likely to be a problem, but if poor fortune were to cast it's shadow on us (say a puncture), then those extra minutes might come in handy.
Rolling along the Great Ocean Road, the pace seemed to be fairly reasonable. We (and those around us) weren't exactly busting a gut, but I don't think we were hanging around either. I think Miss V's gym work has really paid off as she was noticeably stronger along here. Both of us held a little back for the up and coming climb, since we weren't entirely sure how much our enforced time off the bike had impacted us. We hit the end of the Great Ocean Road stretch together, and then, as is customary, I left Miss V to climb Skenes Creek Road at her own pace.
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The run down from the top of Skenes Creek to the Forest aid station is always a highlight of this ride. Stunning scenery, and very tranquil, save for the excessively noisy freehub in my Zipp 101's :) There's a couple of tricky corners, but nothing too bad if you have your head screwed on right and you take into account being able to use the full width of the road for corner entry and exit.
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Unlike last year, the ride in the rolling countryside through Barwon Downs was helped by fairly favourable wind. Probably fortunate, since I think Miss V had burnt a few more matches up Skenes Creek than she thought. While we were going at a decent pace, we made sure to check out the scenery. Very pretty part of the world. A few mental calculations on the bike seemed to suggest that we'd make the next (and final) aid station with plenty of time to spare. We backed it off ever so slightly, but a second mental calculation also revealed something else fairly interesting. Despite our concerns pre-ride, it looked like we were going to finish the ride in a personal best!
We got to the Dean's Marsh aid station well before the cut off time, so we took a little bit of time to stretch the legs a bit. Once again, supplies at the aid station were running out when we got there. A little disappointing for us, and no doubt for the riders who were still streaming into the station.
We rolled out, ready to tackle the final 10km of the timed section. Most of this is fairly steep uphill, though there are some nice fast downhill stretches in there too which breaks it up. For me, this climb seems to take more of a toll on people than Skenes Creek, since I see more people walking up here than anywhere else. I reckon it must be fairly heartbreaking to see the 500m to go sign and just not have enough in the legs to keep riding :( I got to the top, probably with more in reserve than expected, but I'm ok with that, since that's pretty much how the whole event went for me! About 10 minutes later, the familiar style of Miss V came into view around the final bend, crossing the finish line looking pleased as punch :)
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Rolling back into the event village we caught up with the Smudge Monkees and downed some of the provided post-ride pasta. Thankfully, unlike the aid stations, there was plenty of pasta to go around which went down a treat. While we were eating and chatting to everyone we could watch people on the big screen crossing the finish line on the top of the hill which was pretty neat.
Given we were concerned about not being able to start, then not being able to complete the course. In the end, we finished feeling relatively fresh, and PB'ed the course.
We treated ourselves to some awesome pizza from Pizza Pizza (which must be the smallest pizza shop I've ever seen) and six different flavours of gelati from Lick and Sip Cafe. Pretty sure we deserved it!
So.. who's in for next year? :D
Strava Data for those that are curious.
