The Great West Australian Bike Ride - Day 1
Day 1 - Saturday 19-Mar-2011 - Manjimup to Pemberton - 51 km (32 mi)
Click here for Rider Route details.
On Friday night we drove 300km South from home to Bridgetown where we have a holiday house/cabin. After a 10 hour stop over, we were up at 5:30am to get ready and head down the road a little further to Manjimup.
Once we arrived in Manjimup and completed the registration formalities, we had a chance to get some photos of us at the start of the ride. [Edit: Notice Jennifer's cycling jersey.]
They even had a big arch for us to ride through when we started. The arch almost got blown over at one stage, but they fixed it. Both Aaron and Rohan helped by holding the supporting ropes.
The ride itself was a short one to ease us into the ride. We rode about 20km to the Diamond Tree. This is one of 3 remaining lookout trees that used to be used to spot Bush fires. It is about 50 metres tall and some of the riders were game enough to climb it. It has metal bars driven into it to create a spiral ladder.
After an early lunch at the tree, we continued on the ride to Pemberton. We had some hills to climb, and a huge downhill into town. On this downhill, most of the bikes were reaching speeds of 50kmh or more.
At the bottom I came around the corner to find lots of bikes slowing and stopping. It turned out that a rider had fallen. She went down hard enough to break her helmet and was unconscious for a few minutes. She did walk off the road later while some medically trained riders patched up her grazed shoulder, elbow and hip. She is OK, but it was a valuable reminder to be careful. Oh, yes .... I reached 61kmh on that downhill, maybe I will take it slower next time.
We got to the the campsite after completing 41.70km, averaging 17.5kmh. After getting our stuff off the luggage truck, we set up our tents on the cricket/football (Australian Rules) ground.
After a shower in the shower trucks, we had some time to relax before dinner. We went for a walk around the campsite. It was about 3 times what you can see in this photo.
After a roast beef dinner, some speeches with details of the next day's ride followed by live music, we decided to go to sleep rather than stay up too late.
Bye for now, time to see how comfy the self inflating camping mattress is.
The Route Profile for the day is attached to the bottom of this article.
David