Long Ride - Day 1

Point Cook to Geelong

What could be simpler than riding down the most boring road in Australia, the Princes Freeway between Melbourne and Geelong? Well it seems most things.

The day started reasonably well with the bike fully loaded and setting off at around 2pm, the plan being to ride to G-town and take it easy for the rest of the afternoon. Around 5 minutes on the freeway was a pretty clear guide to how people were seeing the Long Ride, lots of support, toots and the thumbs up.

This continued all the way to around the twin BP servos (near the Avalon aurport) when all of a sudden a ute pulled alongside with the driver gesticulating wildly. What the hell was wrong?

We both pulled over and to my horror the driver told me he had seen my trusty Ugly Fish glasses case go flying, he said he had tried to stop me a few kilometres back but I was in a world of my own. What was more horrorfying was the fact that my day to day specs were in the case, which I thought was securely in my jacket pocket, and as Fearless Fly used to say, "without my glasses, I'm helpless".

There was little I could do but laugh and immediately turn around and head for home, hopefully to find an old pair of glasses to wear, either that or live in the Uglies for the next two weeks, this might not be too bad as I had the clear goggles with me too.

After getting home I was lucky enough to find another pair of glasses and so the Long Ride began again, and we were off to Geelong for a second time. This time I took the back and more 'scenic' way to the freeway through Werribee were again the support was great. Back on the freeway I was keen to see if I could find the glasses and case, or what was left of them. I couldn't find them although did briefly glimpse something that resembled a case but at 100kph who could be really sure.

So with this behind me I settled in for the first night of ride and readied myself for the ride to Queenscliff tomorrow via Apollo Bay and the Great Ocean Road. The whole time lamenting that a lesson learned is to make sure everything is secured even on your own person and how a simple 60km, 40 minute ride turned into 150kms and 2 and a quarter hour ride.

On a better note the Long Ride has now surpassed the $100,000 mark and continues to rise steadily, my contribution has stalled slightly at around $8,700 but I'm confident that it can go beyond the 10k target.