Day Five – Albany to Walpole
“The Day Mr Banks Admitted He Was Old”
The day started in the usual fashion with Mr Davis waking the sleeping riders with another interesting choice of music, today it was going to be drum beating to an ancient African rhythm, which will take us years to track down, however, he assures us that the source was reliable. The riders rose, ate another amazing meal prepared in silence by Mrs Howell and Mrs Friend.
As the fatigued muscles were warming up on the road, we proceeded up Mt Clarence to test the weary legs, those who had enough breath or the lactic acid had not built up too much had the fantastic opportunity to appreciate God’s amazing creation. The others kept focused on the road, eyes fixed on the next rise.
The pace to morning tea was cracking, as the conditions were ideal, no wind, fantastic sunshine and a relatively smooth road beneath. Before we knew it, we had 5kms to go to Denmark and only one ascent before a lunch break, unfortunately this was where Spencer joined the many experienced cyclists who had a mechanical failure and had to exit the ride for a couple of kilometres.
Lunch was amazing, re-fuelling on hamburgers in Denmark before we set off to the next stage of the journey. The hills heading out were a challenge for many in the group, a bit of pushing (physical and metaphorical) was required as riders learned the skills of working in a group and how rolling hills flow. To sit in the back of the group is more difficult than the front, however, to be at the front you need to keep tight and stay in the wheel.
As the day went on the discussions over the radio started to increase as Bow River was approaching. A little town with a service station and a few houses has been the annual highlight for Mr Banks as he has won a sprint finish to the Bow River break. Well this year the students were determined that they would rewrite history, a team was formed, known as Team Fairy (TF) and a plot was formed.
From ten kilometres out TF was fuelling up and hydrating for the hit-out, counting down the kilometres until the right time to make the move. At the 2km mark, energy was conserved and we were ready to crank up the train at the 1km mark, we set out with Elliot leading the the way. The cyclists in the peloton said all they could hear was the winding up of wheels as the group of five went past, Elliot lead for the first while, then Jade, next followed by Kasey. For the non-riders, the person on the front takes the force of the wind and the second wheel gets the easy ride.
We knew that Mr Banks had jumped on the back of our train waiting to take the jump – it was only a matter of time. Kasey was spent and dropped off and we cranked it up to the biggest gears. It was at this point that Mr Banks made his move as we had reached over 60km/h with only about 150m to go. He hit the front, unfortunately he didn’t realise that Kaleb was savvy enough to jump back on his wheel. When Mr Banks thought he was the victor again he took one last look to his left and that was when Kaleb took him on the right. We pulled into Bow River, Mr Banks still trying to get his breath back, said ‘I probably need to admit that I’m getting old.’
As all the riders got back on to complete the last section of the day, we wound our way into Walpole. We are continually thankful to the amazing support crew for helping us with everything from nourishment to keep us going, traffic management to keep us safe and luggage transport to provide us with all the other things we need. Without your magnanimous support we could not possibly complete this fantastic fundraising ride.
