Bunches Down the Bay

It was a great day for a ride yesterday and a great ride was had. The Bunches Down the Bay was a real treat. After a longish break from Audax rides, it was good to be back in the saddle again. It's a mainly a flat ride down the eastern side of Port Phillip Bay - from Parkville to Portsea and back.

I set off with the bunch at breakneck speed, suspecting I might regret my early exertions later. It's always a danger when you don't ride your own pace. But the carbon fibre and lycra brigade dropped me up the first set of hills and I was able to settle into a bit more of a rhythm. Besides, as is normal, I caught most of them at the 75km checkpoint.

Since I was feeling good and wasn't taking long breaks at the checkpoints to avoid warming down, this pattern repeated throughout. They'd catch me, I'd sit in for a while, get dropped, then overhaul them at the checkpoints. Oddly though, the bigger group didn't catch back up in the last 50km, and about 15km from the end I found a quicker wheel to sit on and was dragged along to the finish.

A very satisfying ride, more so for the fact that I did my fastest century yet - 3 hours and 59 minutes for the 100km and just over six hours for the 150. Now to get ready for a very different ride: 200km around Lake Eildon next weekend. It's all part of the buildup for the qualifying rides for next years Paris-Brest-Paris.

3,947km so far this year.