The day started well, with a quick breakfast at Bernadette’s, and a briefing on the upcoming roads, before getting on the bike in time to enjoy an absolutely glorious sunrise. Bernadette had mentioned that I stood a fair chance of running into the local hard-core rider, who went up the road most mornings, and sure enough it wasn’t long until I ran into her and her husband. It made for a very pleasant spin up the road to Lorn, with fantastic weather, hardly any traffic, and good conversation. Just a brilliant start to the day.
By the time I reached Lorn I’d ridden 45km and it was definitely time for second breakfast, so a bit of a stop to refuel and restock was in order.
A very pleasant hour was passed in restocking and refuelling, before it was time to get on the road again. Traffic was heavier by now, and it wasn’t long until I noticed some bloke with his caravan hitched up shouting over at me, but the great thing was that rather than the random abuse that is so common these days he called me by name and shouted encouragement. Always such a pleasant surprise!
Another 30km up the road I rode into Anglesea, and I saw a loo, so I pulled over. While I was stopped it seemed like a good time to strip off a layer as the day warmed up, and have some more food, so I sat down and had a snack. Nearly an hour later I gathered my stuff and got on the road again.
It was a pleasant morning and I was feeling good, and it wasn’t long after I started riding again until I was joined by Andy. Andy was very pleasant company, and it was kind of reassuring to realise that even though I was nearly 3,800km into a bike race, hearing his stories of the Tassie Trail still made me want to go for a(nother) bike ride. After a nice chat Andy had to stop to take a phone-call, which was a shame, because we were approaching Geelong. Geelong made a nice spot to pause and grab some food and appreciate some street art, plus I got a huge boost from a number of kids who came out to cheer or even ride along with me, but I knew that from there it wasn’t far until one of the most mentally challenging parts of the route.
The section from Lara to Werribee is a pancake flat series of right-angle turns that somehow just does my head in – the roads are quiet and you can just look ahead and see the turns way off in the distance, which leaves you a lot of time to think.
This particular morning, I was thinking about my ears. And my hair. And the sun. I was thinking about my ears, and my hair, and the sun. You see, four days before the start, I had had my head shaved for charity (which is kind of a coincidence – check out the footnote to see what I’ve been up to this week). It was a great thing to do, it raised a lot of money for a very important charity (specifically the Domestic Violence Crisis Service, which helps people who are facing or fleeing from domestic violence). But it meant I had a whole lot less sun protection. I had been very careful to wear a casquette (which is like a cap, but you use a fancy French name for it, so it is infinitely cooler) every day, and had lathered on the sunscreen on my arms and legs and face and neck. I’d also put quite a lot on my ears, but clearly not enough, because they had burnt. They had actually burnt so badly that they’d blistered, and even scabbed a bit. It required another stop for sunscreen, and from then it was playing on my mind.
Riding into Melbourne, things got a little random. Melbourne is a busy and bustling city, with a lot going on. Specifically, that includes a lot of roadwork, even in the outskirts. It wasn’t long before I hit a road closed sign.
I sent a quick message through to the rider chat group to let them know which way I was going to go, and started thinking about how many detours there were going to be, and how on earth I was going to find my way through them all. Happily, I didn’t actually need to worry – coming around a corner not too far down the road I saw a bunch of riders, including the familiar face of Ryzza, who I had meet on the start line in 2018, and accompanied through Canberra on his way to the Opera House in 2019.
Ryzza, Noel and Lee took me through some of the twists and turns around the roadwork in Melbourne, But it became clear that it was time for a break when a Toll truck went by with the horn going crazy, before pulling into a layby not far up the road. Anyone who has looked at IPWR in any detail will be familiar with Luke Jeffery – he’s ridden sections as a team-member, ridden the complete ride, done a heap of work on moderating the dot-watchers group, and saved a heap of riders on their way through Melbourne, including, as far as I can tell, a surrounding ~1,000km radius. So it was great to see him jump out of the cab and come over to say g’day.
Seeing old friends, meeting new ones, enjoying the delights from Lee’s garden, and all the while being guided through the bits where my route had been ripped up for a new freeway, made for a very enjoyable entry into Melbourne.
The guys rode with me for quite a while, with Lee sticking around to point out a good spot for dinner and get me started on my way out of the city, before giving me one last wave and a warning of the bumpy bridges to come. He was right, those bridges were bumpy!
Melbourne is quite a big place with a lot of cyclists though, and it was great to have a lot of people coming out to give me a cheer, and quite a few coming to ride with me.
There is quite a solid little climb out of Melbourne known as the 1 in 20, and I was lucky enough to be joined by two guys on the lead-in and then up it, despite the fact that by now it was getting pretty late. I have to admit I was initially pretty stoked when Geert commented that I was riding the climb faster then Kristoff (Kristoff Alegaert – multi-time winner of TCR and leader of IPWR 2017 when it was halted), and it was only on later consideration that I realised what it meant: If I was riding faster than Kristoff, but travelling slower, I was obviously spending a whole lot more time not riding. Suddenly I thought back to all those stops in the morning, and felt a bit bad. But then I made one more stop.
My hope for the day had been to get well through Melbourne and into some nice quiet country where I could kip beside the road. By that point though it was becoming clear that wasn’t going to happen. But I had a Plan B. There had been a guy by the name of James who had recently joined the dot-watcher page, and had posted to say that he had a spare room just of the route in Yarra Valley, should anyone be in need of a bed. I messaged to ask if it was OK if I crashed. No problem, he said, and sent me the address. Beauty!
I kept on riding, but I was going very slow (maybe Kristoff took it easy up the hills and then went fast on the flats, rather than just being more efficient? Or maybe it was both?). My eta at James’s place gradually drifted back and back. I sent more and more updates, checking that it was still ok. Eventually the reply cae back to say that it was fine – he was going to bed now, but just call when I got there. So I kept riding.
James’s place turned out to be just a couple of hundred meters off the route, but up a killer hill on a dirt road! Still, it was short, so I made it, and eventually rolled up to the front door at about 3am. I grabbed out my phone, reminding myself that he had said any time, while also deciding that if he didn’t answer by the 4th ring I would just give up and kip in a ditch somewhere. He answered on the second ring. I was relieved!
Walking in, James gave me a quick tour of his house. When he got to the line “That’s the baby’s room”, I butted in to ask how old the baby was. The answer was a couple of months. This guy and his wife, who would already have been severely sleep deprived, were happy to welcome me in at 3am and feed me some of the best apple crumble I have ever tasted. I love the generosity of the people you meet doing IPWR!
Going to sleep that night in a comfy bed I reflected on all the great people I had met through the day, and realised once more that it really is the people who make this event.
A Footnote:
If you’ve been following the dot-watcher page in subsequent years, you may have noticed my hair getting progressively longer with each rider I went out to meet. There was a reason for that.
When I cut my hair in 2021 I did it to raise money for charity, but I had also heard that, as long as the hair being cut was longer than 20cm, it would be used to make wigs that would go to charitable causes, things like cancer patients. Disappointingly though, when it came to the crunch chop, it turned out that my hair just wasn’t quite long enough. Now I have always been fond of my hair, but it hasn’t meant that much to me. I try to judge people by how they act rather than how they look, and I assume others do the same. I know that there is always some impact on my opinion from how they look though, and having a shaved head showed me just how much it impacts other people too. Suddenly people were responding to me differently, and more often than not the change was for the worse. And it wasn’t lost on me that as a middle-aged man I am in a group that is most expected to not have much hair. I realised how terrible it would be if, for example, a teenage girl was to lose her hair. I had been sad that my hair didn’t go to make a wig, but now I was much sadder. So I started thinking about maybe growing it a bit longer, and trying again.
It got to be a pretty decent length, and then one week ago today I cut it off. This time it was plenty long enough to be used for a wig. I also raised some funds for Beyond Blue while I was there, and right now the total is up over $2,000. Unfortunately it doesn’t accept donations from overseas, but if you’re able to make a donation and are keen, the fundraiser is open for a couple more days at https://fundraise.beyondblue.org.au/haircutforhealth
