First 150km Audax
Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 11:37 am
Yesterday I did my first Audax event......
150km on the Great Ocean Road from Anglesea to Apollo Bay and back to Anglesea on my ICE Vortex FS.
All I can say is, "Awesome event"
Everyone should do one ! The organisation is awesome, everyone is friendly, the food is brilliant, cake never tasted so good, you really earn it after 150km.....
A start at 8.20am, I persuaded to work mates to do the ride as well. Beautiful sunshine at the start, and real nice 1st leg to Lorne in 1 hour..... Got the card signed and water bottles refilled and a hot cross bun.....a few hills on the first leg, the DF bikes pulled away on the climbs, then whoosh past a lot on the descents, hit a nice 67kph.... The road was really quiet so after checking it was safe you could use all the road to find good fast lines through the sweeping curves !
Massive grin factor !
I do not transport the Vortex in the car much so I hadn't folded it for a long time - from the start it was mis shifting a lot and making the banjo noises, I tried tweaking the tension on the rear shifter cable with the barrel adjuster and it sort of helped.....
Then next leg was to Kennet River, more hills with some sketchy bitumen in places but some more nice sweeping curves, some good smooth bitumen too ! Good car drivers as well ! My mates again sped up the hills - I think Slim had had Red Bull on his Weetbix for breakfast !! M&M's new S-works looked nice too ! They had breaks at the top of the hills and took photos and then caught me on the next climbs.....
Leg 3 was Kennet River to Apollo Bay, at about the 60km mark the westerly headwind was tough, even for me riding really close to the ground, at some points riding downhill was hard and speeds dropping into the 20's on downhill sections.... Met up with a carbon M5 rider, lovely carbon tail box !! Looked scarily high that far off the ground.....
At kilometre 65km my rear dérailleur cable snapped, oh damn ! Now I was stuck with the highest gear at the back and was now a three speed bike thanks to my front crank.... I do not like to lug, I am a spinner - not good ! And a gusty headwind to boot ! I,pushed on to Apollo Bay - 10km to go, really hard work on the legs - could feel the burn - but head down and steamed onwards, hard to dig deep on the climbs as spinning was not possible.... Bad thoughts about calling my partner to come get me went through my head if I could not bodge a fix together.....
Arrived, checked in... The organiser (Peter) had a spare cable. Tea and a roll first, cool down..... Now extract broken cable compare to new cable, it was about 15mm longer so might just work.... Thread new cable through outer, bit tricky through the barrel adjuster, it was looking good.... About 20mm to short, so had to trim back the outer by 20mm.... Perfect.... It seemed to shift ok'ish some adjustment would be required......
Had a bit more lunch, cake and tea.....
As we left Apollo Bay now heading east the wind had died down
Still some nasty mis shifting and clacking on the back end - gears 3/4 seemed awful and skipping was bad - I remembered the rear sprocket had bent after 200km from new (a new one is on its way from ICE as there was a material defect on a batch of rear cassettes and it's a custom job !), so had to tweak the adjuster so the lowest gear at the back worked and the had to bypass the dodgy ones.....
Some of the 200km riders were just coming into Apollo Bay when we were leaving....
Some mad wind gusts on the way back to Kennet River, I got blown about a metre off course on a couple of corners, so head down and just relax..... And the ripples in the bitumen on the inside of the corners were awful, I am faster on the descents but some hairy scary sideways moments with the back end stepping out on the high speed corners with ripples/corrugations.....
As ever was slower on the climbs and the DFs would pass, but was good on the descents and flats and getting faster on the mild ascents 2-3% but as soon as it went over 5% I would drop back quickly
Once we got past Seperation Creek the road is really fast flowing and swoopy and Lorne is not far away so dig in and go, was a bit ahead of my mates at this point so just steamed onwards...... Lorne pier is a nice sight when you're feeling tired ! Cruised the few final Kay's into Lorne, when a retarded knuckleheaded Volvo XC90 driver stopped on a roundabout right in front of me, no indicators going, totally clueless..... Us cyclists like to maintain momentum at all costs, stopping is bad so you judge everything so you keep moving, so random idiot drivers do not help.... I was tired and thirsty so the idiot driver and passenger got sworn at, sorry I was hot and bothered and tired..... But he was driving like an idiot !
Nice coffee in Lorne....
The final leg - Lorne to Anglesea.......
Some long steady hills some good sweepy descents through the trees leaving Lorne - some hairy hairpins, more rippled/corrugated bitumen..... The hills around Aireys Inlet are surprisingly steep, quite deceptive and seem to drag on..... This is the last hill, damn there's another one in the distance.... This is the last one, oh damn....
This is the last one, woo hoo...... On last fast descent into Anglesea...... Got held up by a car on the descent
Signed in at the end and got overwhelmed by the tea/coffee/cake/biscuits and "congratulations" from everyone. We had made it and out team of three all finished at the same time..... Good work Slim & M&M !!
What an awesome day !
Awesome people, awesome organisation, great location, great weather.....the Audax crew are brilliant !
Such a mix of machines, people, ability, ages, everyone is friendly, no bike snobbery.
Everyone should go do an Audax event, why pay over a $100 for the big organised GOR ride when these guys do a brilliant, friendly ride with everything you could need for $32 if you are a non-member ?
Did I forget to say how brilliant a day it was ?
Feeling a little weary today, a bit stiff in the calfs and quads but could go riding again today !
150km on the Great Ocean Road from Anglesea to Apollo Bay and back to Anglesea on my ICE Vortex FS.
All I can say is, "Awesome event"
Everyone should do one ! The organisation is awesome, everyone is friendly, the food is brilliant, cake never tasted so good, you really earn it after 150km.....
A start at 8.20am, I persuaded to work mates to do the ride as well. Beautiful sunshine at the start, and real nice 1st leg to Lorne in 1 hour..... Got the card signed and water bottles refilled and a hot cross bun.....a few hills on the first leg, the DF bikes pulled away on the climbs, then whoosh past a lot on the descents, hit a nice 67kph.... The road was really quiet so after checking it was safe you could use all the road to find good fast lines through the sweeping curves !
Massive grin factor !
I do not transport the Vortex in the car much so I hadn't folded it for a long time - from the start it was mis shifting a lot and making the banjo noises, I tried tweaking the tension on the rear shifter cable with the barrel adjuster and it sort of helped.....
Then next leg was to Kennet River, more hills with some sketchy bitumen in places but some more nice sweeping curves, some good smooth bitumen too ! Good car drivers as well ! My mates again sped up the hills - I think Slim had had Red Bull on his Weetbix for breakfast !! M&M's new S-works looked nice too ! They had breaks at the top of the hills and took photos and then caught me on the next climbs.....
Leg 3 was Kennet River to Apollo Bay, at about the 60km mark the westerly headwind was tough, even for me riding really close to the ground, at some points riding downhill was hard and speeds dropping into the 20's on downhill sections.... Met up with a carbon M5 rider, lovely carbon tail box !! Looked scarily high that far off the ground.....
At kilometre 65km my rear dérailleur cable snapped, oh damn ! Now I was stuck with the highest gear at the back and was now a three speed bike thanks to my front crank.... I do not like to lug, I am a spinner - not good ! And a gusty headwind to boot ! I,pushed on to Apollo Bay - 10km to go, really hard work on the legs - could feel the burn - but head down and steamed onwards, hard to dig deep on the climbs as spinning was not possible.... Bad thoughts about calling my partner to come get me went through my head if I could not bodge a fix together.....
Arrived, checked in... The organiser (Peter) had a spare cable. Tea and a roll first, cool down..... Now extract broken cable compare to new cable, it was about 15mm longer so might just work.... Thread new cable through outer, bit tricky through the barrel adjuster, it was looking good.... About 20mm to short, so had to trim back the outer by 20mm.... Perfect.... It seemed to shift ok'ish some adjustment would be required......
Had a bit more lunch, cake and tea.....
As we left Apollo Bay now heading east the wind had died down
Still some nasty mis shifting and clacking on the back end - gears 3/4 seemed awful and skipping was bad - I remembered the rear sprocket had bent after 200km from new (a new one is on its way from ICE as there was a material defect on a batch of rear cassettes and it's a custom job !), so had to tweak the adjuster so the lowest gear at the back worked and the had to bypass the dodgy ones.....
Some of the 200km riders were just coming into Apollo Bay when we were leaving....
Some mad wind gusts on the way back to Kennet River, I got blown about a metre off course on a couple of corners, so head down and just relax..... And the ripples in the bitumen on the inside of the corners were awful, I am faster on the descents but some hairy scary sideways moments with the back end stepping out on the high speed corners with ripples/corrugations.....
As ever was slower on the climbs and the DFs would pass, but was good on the descents and flats and getting faster on the mild ascents 2-3% but as soon as it went over 5% I would drop back quickly
Once we got past Seperation Creek the road is really fast flowing and swoopy and Lorne is not far away so dig in and go, was a bit ahead of my mates at this point so just steamed onwards...... Lorne pier is a nice sight when you're feeling tired ! Cruised the few final Kay's into Lorne, when a retarded knuckleheaded Volvo XC90 driver stopped on a roundabout right in front of me, no indicators going, totally clueless..... Us cyclists like to maintain momentum at all costs, stopping is bad so you judge everything so you keep moving, so random idiot drivers do not help.... I was tired and thirsty so the idiot driver and passenger got sworn at, sorry I was hot and bothered and tired..... But he was driving like an idiot !
Nice coffee in Lorne....
The final leg - Lorne to Anglesea.......
Some long steady hills some good sweepy descents through the trees leaving Lorne - some hairy hairpins, more rippled/corrugated bitumen..... The hills around Aireys Inlet are surprisingly steep, quite deceptive and seem to drag on..... This is the last hill, damn there's another one in the distance.... This is the last one, oh damn....
This is the last one, woo hoo...... On last fast descent into Anglesea...... Got held up by a car on the descent
Signed in at the end and got overwhelmed by the tea/coffee/cake/biscuits and "congratulations" from everyone. We had made it and out team of three all finished at the same time..... Good work Slim & M&M !!
What an awesome day !
Awesome people, awesome organisation, great location, great weather.....the Audax crew are brilliant !
Such a mix of machines, people, ability, ages, everyone is friendly, no bike snobbery.
Everyone should go do an Audax event, why pay over a $100 for the big organised GOR ride when these guys do a brilliant, friendly ride with everything you could need for $32 if you are a non-member ?
Did I forget to say how brilliant a day it was ?
Feeling a little weary today, a bit stiff in the calfs and quads but could go riding again today !
