Murray 1200 Day 2

Getting ready for the "off", Richard Ferris, Jerilderie

Ready for the "off"

2 recumbents, Urano

Urano

Richard, roadside stop...

on the way to...

Corowa

A stop near Corowa. Tiff and Pete had the spot trackers on us and knew we were stopped, and caught up to check we were ok.  Yep!

Late night Kyabram

Hi

Day 2 of the ride started about 6:30 am, and I left with Tim, Jan-Erik from Sweden and Richard Ferris for Urano.  There had been 3 drop out the day before, as well as Tiffany's injury, Wolfgang got at far as Conargo before overnighting there and quitting, and Peter Donnan gave up in the face of difficult headwinds and overwhelming distances.

It turns out Richard had driven himself to exhaustion the day before.  He fell over by the side of the road on his bike, decided he needed a sleep so just stayed there for a while sleeping. Later he had a puncture and slept a bit before fixing that. He was pretty cactus when he arrived in!

Mad it into Urano fine with Richard. There was a breakfast place open we didn't know about, so made do with our own food.  We travelled well out of Urana but it was a long stretch to Corowa and I was running very low on energy when we got there.

We stopped at Mcdonalds, and Richard was ready to go on before me, so he did. I ate and drank a bit more, then was on my way, feeling better and navigating by gps no problems. But 200k to go with a 3pm start!

On the road out of Yarrawonga, I passed dome Deli in his red Glyde velomobile and was amazed to see him there.  He was the fastest, and I was the slowest, what was happening? It turns out some not-great tyres, and some not-great tubes had been fitted to the velomobile.  These were the rare 349 size.

I was well equipped with spares and was able to give dome a patch kit and a tube to keep him going. 60 metres up the road, a whole farming family was peering down the road at Dome, wondering "What was this strange vehicle and why is it stuck somewhere near our property?" and I was able to fill them in:
"A stuck velomobile, sort of an aerodynamic bike. I was able to help him because I had the right sized spare tubes. Yes, I have another strange vehicle. We are both on the same silly, long bike ride."

Got into Katatamatite around 7pm in time for the shop, where a nice Indian couple were shutting up shop and they described the various bikes that had gone through incuding the Red one, and were curious about mine.

I didn't feel safe on the roads near there. Going south, the sun was setting and there wasn't a good shoulder on the road.  Then heading west, the road was busy with trucks and cars and there was no consistant shoulder.  I got a front puncture in the dark when I ran over a large obstacle but was able to fix it. The narrow shoulder and traffic meant it was hard to fix the tyre, although I did have one or 2 passing cars offer assistance.

It was a relief to hit Shepparton McDonalds about 10:30, have a bit to eat, check in with Mission Control (Simon Watt) by text before heading out into the kilometres of nothing West of Shepparton. At a servo that was open, I bought batteries for back lights and put air in my front tyre. Out of Shepparton I was on lights alone, and experienced a sort of horizon shift while riding on roads at night. This is a not knowing whether you are going downhill, uphill, or what.  As well, I was on unknown roads with little visible, and your mind fills in the blanks and pretends you are on roads you do know by day and night. For me, this is the Great Ocean Road near Lorne.

It was a plod on to Rochester, and after a rear puncture got there quite late, 4:20 am. I roused Simon, he listened to my anecdotes of the road, fed me and shuffled me off to bed.  I fully expected to see other leaving cyclists but didn't.  Very soon it was bed.  Next post follows here .