The Cycling Adventurer

   Randonneuring

Giro Tasmania 1000 Part II — '04 

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A second-half comeback

After a bit of umming and erring because of a few work and personal commitments, Tim finally said "you're on" about us revisiting Giro Tasmania 1000 last weekend. You may remember I posted a report about getting half way at Easter, and us pulling the plug when the weather became wet and quite miserable. Our plan was to ride the second half at some stage so we would know what we were talking about when promoting the idea of GT1000 in the future.

Most of the roads I had not ridden by bicycle. But I lived on the West Coast of Tasmania for over two years in the late 1970s and knew the roads to Hobart like the back of my hand -- at least from a driver's perspective.

We had aborted the Easter ride at Deloraine, so we separately made our way there to stay last Friday night at a hostel. I caught a coach to Launceston, Tasmania's second largest city behind the capital, Hobart.

Launceston gave me rude welcoming, and I almost didn't make it to Deloraine. The knuckle on my right pinky was grazed by the rear vision mirror of a woman in a white sedan that went past me. No real harm done, I suppose, in what technically was a hit-run incident. But it occurred while I was being harrassed by another driver in a smaller white sedan who made it a point to pull over three times (and get out twice) to admonish me about how I should not have held him up by taking the lane and that I shouldn't even be on the road. Great start to the weekend! And I'm still not sure things got that much better.

When I got to Deloraine, 40km west of Launceston (and after evading the rear vision mirror on a State Government-registered mini bus that overtook me too close), I found the hostel was closed up tight as a clamshell. I eventually found an old hotel with a twin room, really old secondhand furniture, but clean bed linen... and the smell of cooking fat permeating through everything from the downstairs kitchen. It did have the advantage of being right next door to a supermarket, so I carbo-loaded with a baguette lookalike bread roll, ham, cheese, yoghurt and Coke. I also got some canned fruit and rice cream, and assorted fruit/muesli bars, for the following day's first and second breakfasts.

Tim announced his arrival with a phone call to find out where our accommodation was. I waited out the front ostensible to sneak him and his bike in -- the hotel proprietor really didn't want bikes in the room.

"You can put it in the shed," he told me initially.

"No, there's two and a half thousand dollars worth of bike there and I want it in the room with me".

"You can put it in the keg room, then".

"We'll be leaving really early, will there be anybody about?"

"Yes there's always some around".

(Me thinking to myself) "Hmmm, I wouldn't bet on it at five o'clock in the morning".

I made an executive decision, and sneaked my bike into the room without hassle. Tim also finally made it up the back stairs, bike in tow. When we left at 5.30 next morning, of course, there wasn't a soul around.

Anyway, Deloraine is a quiet town on a Friday night and after some debate, Tim agreed to set his watch alarm at 5.00am instead of 5.30 (my option). And so it went off (more on this later!), and we were off next morning.

We hit the road in moderately thick fog at around 5.40am. About 10 minutes later, the bulb in Tim's Ovalplus expired. He stopped to replace it, and I kept riding. Now, Tim is a very strong rider, and I thought it remarkable that he did not catch up to me for a very long time. In fact, he did an extra five kilometres by going through the small cement-producing town of Railton, instead of going straight through to the mural town of Sheffield like I did.

Fog can play funny tricks, too. In the light, it always appeared the road ahead was sloping away downwards, but I felt like I was riding through treacle. Anyway, the real humps and bumps didn't take long to appear, and so the trend was set for the remainder of the ride.

The sun came up about 7.45am, but the valley fog, the surrounding forests, and the imposing grandeur of Mt Roland kept it off me. The sharp contrast between light and shadow on the rocky Mt Roland, however, was magnificent. This mountain rises precipitously from the flatter land to the north. Inspiring stuff.

The first big climb (I estimate 8-10% average for about 4km) was from Lake Cethana to the tiny township of Moina where I stopped and waited for Tim to arrive. The only store/cafe is run by an odd, older couple, whom I remembered from a decade ago. Their grumpy attitude hasn't changed much since then. I grabbed a Coke and ate a can of rice cream outside.

I set off again before Tim and trundled through country I had never visited before. Some of you may have heard of Cradle Mountain, a tourism icon here. That's the region I'm talking about. We wandered through places such as Daisy Dell, then over the Middlesex Plains (which of course aren't particularly plain-like with plenty of creek and river valleys that the road dips into and out of).

Tim caught up with me just before the turn-off on to the Murchison Highway that services the West Coast from North-West Tasmania. Our next stop was Tullah, a village established originally when hydro-electric dams were built around it. It's only claims to fame now are the Wee Georgie Wood steam locomotive, and trout fishing in the hydro lakes. The lack of wind (amazingly, we had only one or two gusts for the entire weekend) was reflected literally in the glassy waters of the lakes we passed.

Our next challenge was about 35km of very lumpy riding up over Mt Black, then through Renison Bell (which is the site of the world's largest underground tin mine, although it is currently in mothballs). These are some challenging climbs, ranging from 6 to 10% and possibly steeper. Eventually, we came out of them and on to the reasonably flat coastal plains and dunes along Ocean Beach between Zeehan and Strahan.

I thought we had made only reasonable time, but Tim was delighted. Our mixed reactions came to light when he said we had left at 6.40am. I thought we had gone at 5.40. "No, I set the alarm for six. Remember?" My mind was still foggy. If that was the case, it put us at close to a 20km/h real-time average (including stops), much better than 17km/h that I had calculated. I still felt sure there was something amiss, however.

About two-thirds of the way to Strahan, I got into a two-up paceline with Tim, but unfortunately, I didn't take enough notice of the bridge up ahead -- a bridge with parellel planking and big gaps. I almost got through to the other side unscathed, but my rear wheel slipped into one of the gaps, puncturing the tyre and scoring the rim. The rim was OK (no broken spokes and no out-of-true), and I had two spare tubes, so I suggested Tim continue on to Strahan and get our accommodation at the hostel settled.

Well, changing out tubes when tired, feeling sweaty and chilled, and in rapidly fading light is a recipe for frustration. In pumping up the replacement tube, I tore the presta valve out of the tube. Anyone who says the retaining nut isn't needed on presta valves obviously doesn't do many tube changes. I got the second replacement tube in and pumped up OK and set off.

About two kilometres down the road, and the rear tyre went soft. Then I felt the clunk that signals rim and tyre tread rolling along together. I took out the tube and where I had patched several, close holes months ago, the patches were coming apart.

In the end, I patched the original tube that punctured on the bridge. I finally got to Strahan at 6.35pm -- 45 minutes after Tim and for just under 13 hours of riding the 230km. I went off and had a shower and we adjourned for dinner and a few quiet beers at Hamers Hotel in Strahan.

When I went to get the bike to return to the hostel, the rear tyre was half deflated again. Oh well, back at the hostel I found a tiny hole and patched it. Only trouble was, I split the rubber around the valve when pumping it up again. Luckily, I didn't pull the valve right out, but put a tiny split to the bonded area, resulting in a swish of air coming out once the pressure increased. What do I do now? Tim laboured to fix the last remaining viable tube. I did some creative work with the cement and a sliver of patch around the valve.

It worked. I pumped up the tyre as far as I dared. I hoped it would stay up next morning. I was too tired to worry much about it, and hit the bed with a resounding thud. Tim and I agreed to keep our wake-up and departure times the same. He didn't even have to reset the alarm on his watch.

The alarm went off next morning. I sat on the side of the bed and pulled on tights and socks, and said: "You cunning bugger, setting your watch to go off an hour earlier".

"No I didn't. I didn't touch it from yesterday morning. What time is it?"

"Just after five o'clock".

"Oh... ahhh... I did wonder why it took so long to get light yesterday morning".

I opened the door of the room to look with some trepidation at the tyre. Phew! The tyre was still inflated. But I did not risk inflating it any further and disturbing the patch around the valve. I could only hope I could make the 300km to Hobart in its current condition.

As it transpired, it was a good thing we got underway at 5.35am, because it was a long, arduous day. It started with a long climb out of Strahan and stayed severely undulating just about all the way to Hobart. We hit Queenstown over two hours later after sunrise revealed some magnificant scenery, including Mt Owen etched against the sky. While Owen seemed only an arm's length away, I knew from my time on the West Coast that a lot of riding remained to get to its barren foothills above the old copper mining centre of Queenstown.

Then, to get out of Queenstown to the east, you need to climb the 99 bends which take you from around 100 metres above sea level to around 500 metres -- all within four kilometres. And it gets windy (very windy) at the Gormanston pass at the top. The wind was a real worry, as it could have made the whole day very unpleasant.

Luckily, it faded quite rapidly as we approached Lake Burbury, another hydro dam that had hundreds of little round ripples appearing as the trout rose to breakfast on various insects. A remarkable sight that would send anglers reaching for their rods... if they had been there.

I was starting to have a few problems with my achilles tendons, a function of the new Brooks B17 saddle and readjustment of the seat post upwards slightly. I should have stopped to dropped the post down a little, but didn't. As I write this three days later, I am still looking like a robot when I walk, and the pain is being dulled only by regular doses of Neurofen Plus.

Anyway, I had more mechanical problems to deal with. A bolt in one of the pivot arms of the Tiagra front derailleur dropped out as I changed to the large chainring. I was really scooting along, feeling physically OK (except for the achilles soreness), stable temperature-wise, and staying around the 28-30km/h mark. There was a bang as I shifted, and the derailleur started rubbing on the chain. I looked down and the derailleur looked limp and very sorry for itself.

I tracked down the problem and removed a dummy bolt from the rack braze-on on the front fork as Tim arrived on the scene. I think there was enough thread to take with the bolt I had, but Tim got out a longer bolt from his small collection and we got it all back together again in less than five minutes. I probably did the bolt up a little too tightly, and shifting into the big chain ring with the STI required so much effort that my left shoulder started to ache. Still, I was at least able to select all the front gears.

We got up through Victoria Pass at ~490 metres. I thought about the highest point on PBP (the Roc) at only 449 metres. And how PBP hadn't really given much reward for all its climbing. But how we had had ripsnorting downhills with speeds well into the 70s (km/h) over the past day or so to reward our Giro Tasmania efforts. Yes, this was a bit like PBP, but bigger (and better for the hillclimbers, I suppose).

The Franklin River is another of Tasmania's wilderness icons, and we crossed it, too. But despite my familiarity with this road, I truly believed we should have crossed it twice. We didn't, and very rapidly we were at the bottom of the long climb up Mt Arrowsmith. The road peaks at a slightly lower altitude than the 981-metre pinnacle. But you know you have had a good work out by the time you get there.

Tim had shown his optimism again early in this section when he said: "Oh, it's only 40 or 50km to go to Derwent Bridge".

"I make it around 90".

"No, I'm sure the sign back there said..."

You get the gist.

When we finally landed in Derwent Bridge, we found varying signposts and map references that ranged the distance back to Queenstown between 100 and 120km.

Tim got into Derwent Bridge (which is close to the source of the mighty Derwent River that flows on to Hobart and out into the Tasman Sea) about 30 minutes before me and had cleaned up a hamburger. I ordered one too. We lazed around talking to Matt and Caroline, friends of Tim's whom we had met in Strahan the previous evening and were driving back to Hobart.

I set off again before Tim, and he again took a while to pass me. I was starting to get into a rhythm again, and I was looking forward to another big downhill screamer into the Nive Valley, where the Tarraleah power station is located. Of course, doing down means going up on the other side. More 8 and 10% grades, topped off with what I reckon to be a 100-metre section of 14-15%.

Once I reached Tarraleah, I thought, it was all downhill. It might have seemed so in a car years ago, but now, on a bicycle, and at the start of the first "downhill", all I could see in the distance in the fading light was uphill peaked HIGHER than where I was standing!!!

Well, when you are out in this lonely part of the world, in pain, in rapidly increasing darkness, and with fog slowly thickening, there is only one thing to do. Get riding. You stay warm, and you slowly but surely progress closer and closer to the end point. And admittedly, there eventually were some fast downhills to compensate for the climbing.

I stopped only twice on any of the climbs during the whole ride. The first was on Mt Black when my chain overshifted past the granny gear (which was a pretty good record because granny and I got to know each other very, very well over the weekend). The second was when one particularly vicious hill out of Wayatinah (after Tarraleah) finally wore me down. But I sucked on some Bob's Jungle Juice mix, collected my where-with-all, staggered the bike in a complete circle as I tried to gain the momentum to get moving again, and finished off the hill. Ha! I'll come back again and show you who's boss!

The downhills started to increase in frequency. On one, the Tiger Line coach on a regular service to and from the West Coast went past me towards Hobart. "That's the last chance gone, now," I said to myself as I thought of escape routes, an stuffing the bike in the luggage bay, and lazing back in a comfortable seat.

Tim got into Ouse (pronounced ooze) an hour before me this time. I think this was about 8.00pm on Sunday. He called up his family to say he would be staying at my place tonight. There were a few people in the cafe and one volunteered that he had had no trouble seeing us as he drove up from behind in the fog. The he asked where we would be staying the night around here

"At home... in Hobart".

The look on his face was priceless.

I changed out of my sweat-soaked jersey into a thermal, and because it was starting to rain, swapped my windproof jacket for a waterproof one. I felt really comfortable all the way home after that... not too hot, not too cold, and not too wet.

Two significant climbs remained -- out of Hamilton and out of Rosegarland. There was fog and rain. The road glistened. And we both experience tyre squeal as the treads sought traction on the smooth surfaces on both climbs. A really uncanny experience.

Even more so was when cars came up from behind me. There was an extraordinary apparition that appeared each time ahead of me. The black figure loomed larger and larger as it approached. Then suddenly, it would explode from view as the vehicle passed. Of course, it was my own shadow cast against the whiteness of the fog. It just amazes me that I continue to experience new things like this while riding.

There was one more little drama to play out, however. Railway lines cross the highway at several points. And despite taking special care to lower speed and cross one set at as near a right angle as possible, I came down. The front wheel got over the first rail OK, but just slipped away from underneath me on the second. I put my left hand out to break the fall, then thought all at once about having come so far to maybe break a bone so close to the end. I lay on the road, the bike on top and my left shoe still clipped into the pedal.

I checked out my hand and wrist. Ouch, that hurts. I grasped the handlebar. It hurt a little, but I could apply quite a bit of pressure. Hmmm, ligment bruising, but unlikely to be broken bones. I checked up and down my forearm, and felt no pain there or in my shoulder. Maybe I had gotten away with it. I then had to put a lot of thought into how to extricate my left foot from the pedal. I got the bike up, did a quick check, moved the left-side STI back around to its proper position (not easy to do when one hand is virtually immobile).

I knew Tim was not far down the road waiting at New Norfolk. So I just got on the bike and rode off. I was extremely cautious, to the point of clumsiness, going over the second railway crossing, but I made it OK. Shifting from the middle to outer chainring was a real hassle, though.

Tim and I stood and discussed the final 40km to my home. At 9.30pm, New Norfolk had closed right down for the evening. Except for one little character who played out the most extraordinary incident on the trip. I noticed an animal moving along the gutter, nosing into the rubbish.

"Look, there's a rat," I said to Tim.

He took a look. "Hey, that's a platypus. It's not a rat because of the way it's moving".

By the time I had moved — painfully — for a second look, the platypus had disappeared down a drain and as Tim observed, was probably back in the river already. Tim said they are known to forage quite widely from their nests. It's the first time I have seen one, even though I didn't know what it was at first. I do recall its bill knocking along the gutter as it searched for food. This is in a populated area, and I was absolutely blown away by the experience.

The rest of the ride home was uneventful. We slumped into my unit at 11.35pm (or thereabouts) with a smidgeon over 300km on our odometers. I think that works out to just over 16.5km/h real time average, and would have had us inside the time limit if it had been an official 300km randonnee.

I was knackered entirely the next day, and because I could hardly walk, I called in sick at work (my first sick day in well over three years). I have lowered the seat by 5mm on the bike, and dropped the nose very slightly. My faithful Shimano shoes that have been with me through three years and 30,000km are to be retired as I suspect them to be a source of some of my ankle woes. My achilles are starting to come right although it's still painful riding to and from work, and walking down steps.

I also had a recurrence of pain on the anterior part of my left ankle. Ice baths for the ankles at night are helping, along with the Neurofen. My left shoulder is fine despite the difficulty in shifting. My backside is thankful for the new B17, although I think I need to investigate new shorts with a pad that doesn't retain the sweat in that region so much.

I was happy throughout with my rehydration strategies, the use of Bob's Jungle Juice mix, and maintaining some level of sustenance. I am not a good climber, but I persisted and succeeded on all but two, as mentioned.

I did get to wear the mitts, mentioned in another post on equipment, to ward off the cold. I still probably had too much gear (Tim's bike certainly was lighter than mine). I came home minus another faithful item of equipment — my pocket knife evidently slipped out of a side pocket on my handlebar bag when repairing punctures near Strahan.

Overall, I was happy with the effort.

As to Giro Tasmania being a viable 1000km randonnee? Of course, it can be, but participants would need to be very experienced, know how to look after their knees, be prepared for all types of weather, have good rehydration and refuelling strategies, and be able to contend with long periods of being alone in remote country. We're doing some research on total elevation gains, and I suspect that GT1000 would rank with several other well-known events on the world calendar.

Certainly, Tim and I concluded that Sunday's 300km was among the toughest rides we have done in the past three years, including PBP and a trek through the Great Dividing Range between Canberra and Melbourne.

Footnotes:

• The left wrist is still "iffy" a week later. Mainly twisting motions, such as turning on the tap, create discomfort. And standing on the pedals uphills is problematic; a good discipline to stay seated, I suppose. Changing gear with the STI lever also is painful. Braking is not, however, along with typing.

• The achilles tendons are also still tender. I think you are right about the shoes. I have a pair of new Shimanos that I wore yesterday for a quiet 40km ride, and the support across the pedals was much better. For reference, I run Time Atac platform pedals.

  On the old shoes, I have worn down the outside of the sole, and that was aggravating a natural pronation of the foot. Having the new B17 seat a tad too high brought all the problems together. A pair of Specialized shoes with the metatarsal button is on my shopping list for randonnees, and the new Shimanos will become my commute/work shoes.