Marysville Ride (and my first ever blog)

Well Didos,

We had yet another official Dido adventure on the weekend - CSV Marysville fundraising ride was another outing where we were the best looking bunch on the road.

In the sprint event (approx 80kms) were Phil and Ree, and in the all day affair were Deb, Sonia, Paula, Waz, Ricardo, Stats, Trevsy, Leon, Darren, Nico, Banger, Liam, and yours truely. (Sorry if I missed anyone)

The Ride was blessed with perfect weather and after a frustrating drive over the Black Spur in traffic we made it just in time to miss the start. Never mind we had press obligations to attend to (not to mention the other pressing obligations tat cold morning and coffee bring to mind). Ricardo didn't like the look of one of the burnt trees so he decided to head butt on (without his helmet on, and came off second best)

Slowly over the first 30kms the various Dido groups came together with the exception of Banger and Liam who just couldn't contain themselves and headed off at the usual hard mens pace. But this was a day for "steady as she goes", despite Darrens tube changing breaks, Sonia's Tire changing break (oh the embarrasement of having mis-matching pink and red tires) and Leon and Trevsy's wee breaks. (see the background).

The climb before Eildon was a lovely little one. Eildon didn't have much to offer so it was off across the dam wall (impressive and back towards home, via a lovely country coffee / chips stop.

The ride home was steady and the slow cloimb back into Marysville took the sting out of the legs, prior to the final 21km climb up Lake Mountain. The first 5kms are tough going, especially with 120km in the legs, but the hill then eases back and the rest is pretty gentle (as Mountains go). The white snow gainst the black tree stumps was very surreal and it was very nice to get to the top (just in time for a quick burger, purchase a tee shirt) and head back down the hill at breakneck speed.

Just to top the day off the Black Spur road was closed so we too a detour via Warburton adding another 50 odd kms to the trip.

A long day but very glad to have supported the local community.