Around the bay in a day - really! (well, sort of)

I finally did it. I rode around Port Phillip Bay in a day, all 140 sweaty kilometres of it. The actual Around the Bay in a Day ride is 210 kilometres, but we stopped in the northern Geelong suburbs and took the train back to Melbourne. My riding companion and I had been riding for a solid 8 1/2 hours at that point (with an hour's break as we took a ferry) and had had enough.

I had been saying I'd do the ride for a while, then decided it sounded too daunting and stopped talking about it in the hopes that people would forget that I'd made such an outlandish claim. But my friend Greta kept pushing the idea, and when I admitted I'd sort of given up, she declared she would do it with me in order to motivate me to to the ride. She was a great sport, true to her word, and we did the ride on Saturday.

The first 20km or so outside of Melbourne were marked by what seemed like thousands upon thousands of cyclists with fancy racer bikes. The rest of the journey was marked by what seemed like thousands upon thousands of flies. It is difficult to say which was more annoying. On the one hand, the cyclists didn't seem hell-bent upon entering my every exposed orifice (although maybe I just wasn't their type). On the other, I had no real fears that the flies were going to knock me over and trample me to death in a stampede of fluro Lycra. The insects crashed into me, certainly, and although a horsefly to the forehead as you're flying downhill has enough force behind it to raise a welt, it isn't enough to knock you from your perch. The same cannot be said for a middle manager in a Melbourne bank pretending to cycle the Tour de France on a Saturday morning.

What I don't understand about the Lycra Pack, as these riders are known, is why they wear matching outfits covered in advertisements. I know why Lance Armstrong was covered in adverts for the US Postal service, but no one is paying the Lycra Pack to bomb around Melbourne on their $3000 bikes. The most unfortunate sartorial choice I saw was a woman sporting an advertisement for some sort of food. I don't know what the food was, but I can hazard a guess as to its texture: across her tuchus were the words "MOIST AND CHEWY." It was revolting.

Although the day was forecasted to be disgustingly hot, we were lucky in that the first 95km was along the coast, and the morning coolness did not burn off until midday. It was the most beautiful part of the ride, all along the beach and sea cliffs. There were some serious hills, some that seemed like they would never end, but it was (almost) worth it soaring down the other side. We stopped once at the 40km mark to stretch our legs, but for the rest we rode straight through, excepting stops while still in the saddle to take a swig of Gatorade or eat energy-giving snacks like peanut-butter cracker sandwiches. While on the subject of Gatorade, let me tell you, that stuff works. When my legs were feeling the strain and were complaining about the hardships I was subjecting them to, I had a few sips of Gatorade and instantly felt better. The exahaustion and even muscle soreness were gone. I wouldn't have believed it, but a marathoner friend recommended sports drinks in addition to water, as he found it really helped. It does. My whole body ached at times, but after Gatorade and a cracker, I was right to tackle another hill. Gatorade is not a proud sponsor of LesandCassinOz, but if they want to kick in a few bucks for this endorsement, I wouldn't say no. I'm just saying. If you are doing a serious athletic activity (we're talking marathon or multi-hour bike ride, not just a jog to the shops), I recommend it. But stay away from the red one - it tastes like pulverised red sweets of an indeterminate type.

We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves by the time we got to the ferry at the end of the peninsula. We'd gone beyond the Lycra Pack, who for all their customised bike shorts and stupid clip-on shoes didn't venture more than a few suburbs from the city centre. We were chuffed, that is, until we got on the ferry and met a couple in their late 50s who were 8 weeks into a yearlong bike trip around Australia. The woman said she'd only started cycling this year, and they'd decided to rent out their house for a year and see the whole country by bicycle. Greta and I no longer felt like such athletes - now this was a bike trip worth writing home about. I hope that they are keeping a blog so that their friends and families can marvel at their accomplishment.

The second leg of the journey was by far the inferior. For one, we were no longer on the coast, riding instead on a hilly and dusty highway. It was now mid-afternoon, and the sun was merciless. Fortunately Leslie had bought me a gel-filled seat cover and had lent me his iPod to make the journey as comfortable as possible, and I was exceedingly glad of both during this leg of our travels.

When we finally managed to get to Geelong, we went into a shopping centre to freshen up a little. There never were two girls who looked less likely to pop into high-end department store Myer and pick out an outfit and extravagant hat for the Melbourne Cup. I looked slightly more civilised once I'd washed most of the dead flies off my face.

We toddled around in the northern suburbs of Geelong for a while, then caught a train back to Melbourne. And there ended our journey. There had been no trouble with cars the entire trip, until I was across the street from our apartment again about to cross to home. A car full of hooligans (I didn't see them, but they must be hooligans) threw water on me, then took off at top speed, weaving in and out of traffic and driving in the tram tracks to avoid pursuit. I like to think I would have caught them if I weren't the other side of a 140km bike trip.

Anyway, it all ended well. I slept 12 hours that night and felt I'd richly deserved every one.

Some of you are saying, "That's all very well, Cass, but what is Leslie up to? You're ignoring his exploits!" Leslie is up to his eyeballs in his final folio preparation, but it's coming along well. He has very ambitious ideas, but they're coming to fruition admirably. He's doing a Greek mythology theme to some of his shots and a magical creatures theme to some of the rest. He will no doubt post the final images and tell you all what he's been doing.