Rod Hills 2010 Bicycle Victoria's 3 Peaks Challenge Ride Report

Here is Rod's ride report from his 2010 Bicycle Victoria's 3 peaks Challenge. Rod has been to many of our Bright Boot Camps and it was a great pleasure to hear that he finished it after riding through some nasty weather.

By Rod Hill
It certainly was a tough day last Sunday...There was steady rained for 90% of the time. I actually didn't mind the rain as I had the right clothes for the conditions.

Every 300 - 400 metres on the last climb there was someone fixing a puncture.

The looks on peoples faces said it all - after 200 odd km's they then had to deal with this as well as being cold, numb hands and poor light....

It was a matter of thinking when is my turn going to come. When I got to Trapyard flat (~20km's from the finish) I checked my front tyre and it had about 30 psi in it - I had noticed it being soft but thought it was due to corrugation in the road. ..!!!

I pumped it back up to 110psi and contined on, fully expecting it would go down at any stage - but it didn't.

About 1.5km's from the end three riders were on the side of the road and asked me if I had a "spare tube". They had had 4 punctures between the 3 of them. I gave them my tube and thought how lucky I was to get thru without a puncture...!!!

Highlights:
- Finishing...!!!
- Finally getting over Mt Hotham after two previous failures due to bad weather.
- The spectacular scenery from Dinner Plain to Omeo and especially from Omeo to Anglers Rest.
- Sharing the experience with hundreds of other like minded people.

I certainly enjoyed the experience and would do it again.

FYI - my ride stats:

Distance = 237.54 km
Total Time = 10:36:15
Ave Speed = 22.4 km/h
Total calories = 10,672
Avg Heart Rate = 115 bpm
Avg Cadence: 72 rpm
Total Ascent = 3266m (but I am dubious as my Garmin wasn't displaying %gradient correctly most of the time and seemed to be stuck on the same elevation for long periods of time). Craig Bailey (fellow rider) recorded 3,886m of total ascent on his Garmin 500 which has a more accurate altimeter... !!!