Distance: 186 kilometres
Average speed: 26.6 kmph
Maximum speed: 62.5 kmph
Temperature Minimum - 13.4 degrees
Temperature Maximum - 19 degrees
Metres climbed: 1322
Ride time: 7hrs 1min
Wind: Tailwind all day! Very happy :) riders!
Road Kill by Nick 'Cougar' Bourns and Katrina 'KatPandaBalls Cousins
1 fish, 1 minor, 1 wagtail, 1 magpie, 1 bike wheel, 11 bad smells - most probably coming from the riders, 6 rats, 5 skippies, 3 wallaby's, 3 wombats, 6 lizards, 1 ring-tailed possum, 1 cockatoo, 1 cat, 1 rosella and 5 snakes for a most successful road kill day.
Category Jersey won by: Katrina Cousins for not only being one of the best road kill counters in the history of counting killed animals, but for her enthusiastic and very loud calls within the peloton. The word stick was heard coming from KatPandaBalls no less than 1752 times.
Guest Speaker tonight was Tony Smythe, a community radio announcer in Sydney, who is riding this first stage back home. Tony spoke about the message that rides such as these delivers to actual victims of cancer and it is all positive.
Smiddy Huddle honour was presented to Roger Hawley, for his dedication to Smiddy for many years. Between Roger and his partner Kim Grylls, together they have raised over $50,000 for Smiddy and the Mater Foundation. Thank you Roger.
Blog dedication
Today all the 7in7 riders that know Craig Mitchell suggested that we dedicate this blog to Craig and his lovely wife Amber. Craig has done the 2011 Smiddy Challenge up to Townsville, and was involved in the 2012 7in7 stage across the Nullabor when we had just 8 riders. Well Craig and Amber were married just today and a few of the guys here were invited and not able to attend. Congratulations to Craig and Amber, who I know will be reading this blog on their wedding night...
I am determined to get to bed tonight before 10pm. You see after over 600 kilometres of riding in just 3 days, 2 late nights writing the blog, losing an hour of sleep due to the clocks being brought forward for daylight savings, not to mention I spent 5 hours sweeping, with a dustpan brush, the entire 186km's of road in an attempt and the greatest crime ever committed by me in missing breakfast this morning as I was still trying to get the blog finished and posted before the 7am roll out, I have decided to not give you guys a complete rundown of the day as it panned out but will hop straight into my top ten memorable mentions for our third day on the road. It was a funny sort of a day as it panned out, due to the cooler conditions no clothes needed to be taken off or put on all day, the rolling hills continued on and on and on for nearly the entire 186 kilometres, and the call of sticks will (pardon the pun) stick in my mind for days to come! So without further adieu lets get into it.
1.The first pee stop of the day at 30 km's into the ride was at Meerlieu Cricket Club. Which was quickly dubbed Dengue Fever Haven for the million mosquitos that had a feast on the Smiddy riders. Many riders were seen doing the great Australian wave mosquito dance which had no affect at all on the miserable blood sucking sods.
2. At morning tea at Bairnsdale Jess informed a select few of a fun enclosed slippery slide that she had taken a liking to. Farragio, Kratzo and Cereal bolted for it like excited school children. Sarah was first down and I took a photo and her famous last words were; "what could possible go wrong?" My only regret was I did not take a video of her slide. This slide had several bumps in it and I think due to the lycra Cereal Sarah was wearing, made her streamlined body extremely slippery as she got airbourne several times over the 50 metre drop to the ground. Bam she landed on her back, sunnies flying, screaming at the top of her lungs. Farragio bolted down the steps worried sick that Sarah had hurt herself, Kratzo was of course worried but was laughing so hard that he had to sit down. Once we ascertained that she was okay I bolted back to the group and pretended I had nothing to do with this silly antics. I heard later that Kratzo actually took a leap of faith after Sarah and successfully put on his elbow brakes to slow his descent.
3.The kangaroo that in a past life used to be a cyclist and desperately wanted to be accepted into the peloton. The young Skip hopped along showing off that he was faster than us for a good kilometre before a fence blocked its way. We were all chuffed to see a skip that was not road kill.
4. The peloton got an amazing photo of the entire group at Jemmy's Point Lookout, which took in the gorgeous view of Lakes Entrance. Someone in the peloton was silly and suggested we all point towards the sky with our fingers. Of course everyone did!
5. The road crew as you know are amazing people. At lunch I took in the crew attending to every riders needs. The food was once again up to scratch and worthy of a kings ransom. I know Matt Marshall is enjoying seeing the other side of the fence from being a rider to this week taking on the duty of road crew member. It warmed my heart to see him come over to Ryan, who is suffering from a sore Achilles and did not even ask for any help, with a bag of ice for Ryan to apply to help with the inflammation. Nice work Matt!
6. Sammi Jo I can't say enough about. Tonight at the local pub for the team dinner I asked any rider who had had Sammi Jo work on them over the past 3 days to raise their hands. I counted 14 riders! Without her here these guys and girls would be in a world of pain and putting the completion of this event in jeopardy for some of them. We of course all love Sammi Jo.
7. The finish today was at a seaside small town called Marlo and once again a group photo at this iconic spot where the great Snowy River flows into the mighty Taman Sea was mandatory. Just saying that name makes me feel adventurous and manly and I feel like flexing my guns! :)
8. Today a new club was formed in the group codenamed the Achilles' Survivors. First admission was Mini Hicks, closely followed by the mighty 7ft 8" tall Rusty Conway, who, like Cameron Kratzing, desperately wanted to spend some time with Captain Kev. Rusty is a fighter though and at lunch the all time smallest pocket rocket on tour, Sammi Jo, who stands 3ft 2" and weighs 32kg, was able to work her magic with needles so long that they went in one side of his calf and out the other, and presto, Rusty was back in the peloton after lunch and seen pushing Janet all afternoon up all the rolling hills. Nice work Sammi, welcome back Rust Man and thank you to Cereal girl for rousing Rusty for pushing people when he should have been resting.
9. Billy William Bruce is determined to start up his own solo club in the Smiddy peloton. You see our old mate is the largest, strongest, most handsome and is built like a wide load barreling down the highway at full speed. He is so huge that this man needs space and plenty of it. Therefore the big man has started up the 'Sit out in the line of traffic club.' To date he has no members but it has not stopped him from taking on semi's, caravans, cars, bike and the odd wide load that passes by.
10. Sticks, sticks and more sticks were the order of the day. The Kill man had once again come up with an ever changing course that had us on the quietest of back country roads, to the noisiest sections of heavily traffic highways. It was the highways that presented the problem of sticks. With the wild wind storms of last week that passed through the Victorian region all the crap had fallen or blown into the verge of the road. On any of these roads we are required to stay as far to the left as possible, except for Billy of course! The calls were coming thick and fast and it was so ridiculous that I suggested we should just call out when there were no sticks on the verge. Of course this idea did not catch on, especially as I only told one person, Adriel Cahir and he just laughed, as he knew it was my fault as I ran out of time when I was sweeping the course in the early stages of this morning. True story.
That's it from me guys.
Take care.
Sharky
PS I am happy to report that for the past 2 days the cows have been running away when asked. I am guessing it was because back then on day one they were within 200 kilometres of the city. What this means is that I am happy once again as the respect is back.
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