The Amy’s Ride Albury report (Contribution to A Grand for Charity = 124 km)

 

 

 

 

On Friday the 7^th of March, I went to Albury for the Amy’s Ride Albury. This ride was held as part of the Multisport Albury City (MAC) event held over 2 weeks. My brother in law gave me a bike rack for the car and I used it successfully to get to the Tour De Hills, so it would be interesting to see how it would work for the 553 km trip to Albury. I decided to give myself 3 weeks off work to wind down and so decided to include the Amy’s Ride Albury and the Big Canberra Bike Ride in the first week with the Mt Cootha Challenge in Qld, being a possibility for the next week.

The ride was in support of the Amy Gillett Foundation which raises money to promote safe cycling and foster and promote better relationships between drivers and cyclists. The Foundation is named after Amy Gillett, a professional cyclist who was killed while training with the Australian Women’s Cycling Team.

There was a choice of either a 124 km ride or a 40 km ride. Both of these rides took the riders over the Victorian Border. I chose to do the 124 km ride. I left Sydney at about 09:30 after collecting a baby swing my mother bought for my nephew on ebay. I drove down the Hume Highway and found to my surprise that the petrol for the drive cost less than the rail or air fares. Earlier that week I had booked myself a hotel room at the Astor Hotel Motel. When I got there I found that I had been there before when I did a road trip to Melbourne. The drive was relatively uneventful even though as with the drive to Castle Hill it took longer than advised by the whereis.com. I found the approach to Albury has changed heaps when I arrived – there is now a bypass of the town centre.

I found my way to the Astor and unpacked the car. I then walked to the town centre and got some breakfast cereal and other supplies. I found that the service in café’s etc was slow. So I wound up having a meal in my room. I watched the first quarter of the Essendon versus Collingwood game and then retired for the night. I wound up finding that the band playing in the Hotel part of the Astor and the subsequent brawling by some of the patrons kept me awake for part of the night.

In the morning I got myself up and packed the car. I got myself ready and double checked the directions I had been given to Noreuil Park. Fortunately I had been given a map of the town and checked my directions as I would have been sent on a wild goose chase and nearly wound up back on the Hume. Fortunately I found the park, unfortunately I wound up missing the start. There were two other riders with me, I went out to try and catch up with the ride. However I wound up having to return to the park, where I collected my registration and got a briefing on where the route. I fully expected to be told that I was going to wind up doing the 40 km ride. If I had I would have copped it on the chin and done the 40 km ride (it would have been a good excuse to go up to the Central Coast and do the Loop the Lake the next day!) However the organisers arranged for the car that was to be following the ride to wait for me over on the causeway over the boarder at Wodonga.

 

After getting my number pinned on I rode all out to catch up with the other riders. I found the support car and went through the back roads through Wodonga in hot pursuit of the other riders. Just outside Wodonga the support driver offered to drive me up to the rest of the riders but I turned him down. I rode on through Bandiana and the back roads towards Tallangatta when I finally caught the last two riders and passed a guy who it turned out had broken a spoke in his rear wheel.

I said hello to the two tail end riders and we discussed the reasons for our lateness. All of us had not been to Albury for a while and had no idea where Noreuil Park was. We settled in and became the back of the pack group. When we got to a community hall that was open so we could use the toilets we stopped and used the loos and introduced ourselves. My riding companions were Irene and Chris from Melbourne. Chris had been on the Great Escapade and we exchanged stories of the start at Lithgow. Irene works at a gaming venue in Melbourne. We were about to head off, when we found the kittens from a neighbouring house. It turns out there were 11 of them and Chris and Irene are cat lovers.

We finally headed off and rode as a group. I discussed cycling in Sydney with Irene as we proceeded through Kergunyah 

towards Hume Weir.The ride went through the back roads, we passed some local cyclists either commuting or touring. The attitude demonstrated by drivers in Northern Victoria was a stark contrast to the attitude of New South Wales motorists. We were given space and were passed by cars at slow speeds. We rode through the cattle country which included a sprinkling of orchards and horse studs. We rode past Latchford Barracks and onto the halfway point. Before we got to Hume Weir Chris and Irene went to a service station for food while I rode on. I rode across the weir and into New South Wales. I met the rotary volunteers and refilled my water bottles and had some of the fruit and energy bars there. It turned out that one of the volunteers lived at Sydenham and was familiar with my neighbourhood. We were joined by Chris and Irene, who claimed that the service station also doubled as a bottle shop. The usual jokes about alchol went around. We restocked on energy gels which became useful in the hills that were to come.

We headed off and followed the lake to a bridge where we crossed into Victoria again at Bethanga. I there were some small hills but these were easy compared to the gap. I finally got backed to Talgarno and went for a toilet stop. While I was there Chris and Irene caught up, we discussed the ride and were warned about the two cattle grids which we would encounter on the return route to Albury. After we freshened up we began our ride back into NSW.

We headed back across the bridge. We followed rode back to Doctors Point and then followed of the Riverina Highway to the outskirts of Albury. We turned off into residential streets which lead to a road that lead through and industrial estate and lead under the bypasses. The road followed the Murray after which we were diverted through residential streets to the Kiewa street and then onto Murray street for the entry to Noreuil Park. Collin had caught up with Chris and Irene and lead them into the park but I was too far ahead and wound up riding in to the park at the tail end of a criterium race.

I had a look around the park and watch some of the racing. I caught up with Chris and Irene and was told about their return to the park. I also got talking to the representative of the Amy Gillett Foundation. He and I discussed the possibility of a NSW ride and he claimed that NSW and Sydney especially is a difficult market. He claimed that Bicycle NSW wasn’t forth coming with support for the ride. He said Amy’s ride Brisbane and Canberra were going to be held sooner than either NSW or Sydney.

I got myself ready for the trip to Ruth’s place at Warrimoo. I put the bike rack on the car and put the bike on the rack. After a 15 minute power nap, I headed off out of Albury back up the Hume. I reached Warrimoo at 10:30 and got myself off to bed for the next days trip to Wollongong.

Talgarno. The countryside was suffering from the drought, you could see the level the water had dropped by the layers of the sand in the lake. The hills started off some gentle climbs but we became separated as the climbs got steeper. The challenging climb came when I arrived at a Gap (I forgot who’s Gap it is named after but as I am beginning to suspect anything called a gap meant to describe a steep climb). On this Gap I found myself having to use the granny gear and on two occasions had to stop and have an energy gel and some water. I saw Chris and Irene followed by Colin (the guy driving the support vehicle) and was able to complete the climb. When I reached the summit I was able to enjoy the descent into