After lots of last minute drama when one of our party pulled out with health issues we had a mad rearrange of the boat and vehicle bookings and Richard took over the role of taking a vehicle with the bikes packed in the back on the Spirit. Maurice and I flew over and Richard picked us up as planned at Tullamarine Airport on Saturday morning. After a few hours in the car and a very late brunch at Bright at the Old Chook Cafe we arrived at Falls Creek and our accommodation at the Falls Creek Country Club. James and Scott met us at Falls and we settled in with all our bikes and us in the room with hundreds of other bikers.

We had to have our bikes checked to get our registration and event packs, not particularly exciting, just a number plate, wrist band, valet bags and some promotional material. With all that done we went for a short 20km ride to stretch the legs and check out the last part of the course for the finish tomorrow. We got back in plenty of time to attend the rider briefing, then tea and then endless phafing around setting up our nutrition, bikes and valet bags before the morning.

The morning was cool at about 6 degrees so you had an extra layer on or froze for the 40 minute descent to the bottom. Lining up was a sea of riders and blinking red and white lights. We are sent off in waves based on your nominated finish time. We left as a group but quickly spread out as some are better descenders than others and after the 36km descent a few minutes separated us all. Quite a few crashes and punctures on this first section and some very erratic riding. You had to be very careful not to get taken out but it was sooo much fun even though I got a bit chilled. One guy crashed in front of me as we rounded a gentle bend but there was no chance of stopping at 60kmh to see if he was Ok, plenty of medics on course to scrape him up.

No worries about being cold though as we reached the bottom after a fast and thrilling 36km we rode through Mt Beauty where we stayed on our recent MTB trip and we hit Towonga Gap climb shortly after. This is the shortest and easiest climb – 7.6km, 498M elevation at 6.5% average grade completed in around 28 minutes. Warming up now another fast descent down to Germantown and the longest flat section of the course through to Harrietville at the base of Mt Hotham. I busted my boiler to get on the back of a very large group and had a great fast run through this section in a big pack.

Mt Hotham climb I expected to be great fun and it was to start with and was till the end but it had some very steep sections in the middle and end and took me 1h:42:26 to complete which is a long time time riding up one hill. Hotham is 30km long with1322M elevation gained and 4.5% average grade with some steep sections around 12%. Scott caught up to me at the top of Hotham and we had a chat for a bit going over the top. Some fast descending again and a few lumps got us to the half way point and the lunch stop at Dinner Plains. We had ridden 117km in 4.5hrs and gained 2,470M of elevation already. Three of the four of us aiming to complete the event in under 10hrs all arrived within a few minutes of each other with Richard about 10 minutes behind us. After a quick bite to eat and refill of the water bottles we were off again as a group of 3 with Richard again a few minutes behind us.

The day started overcast but by now the cloud had cleared and it was getting HOT. We headed through many more ups and downs, through Omeo and headed into the valley towards Anglers Rest. The road either side of Anglers Rest was great fun weaving around the valley with good speed but a struggle at first to get people to work on the front of the group. Everybody wanted an easy ride. We stopped at Anglers Rest to refill water bottles for the last climb. Arriving at WTF corner (‘W’hat ‘T’he ‘F’uck corner) it became clear why this last climb had this name. We had been ridingfor 7hrs, with 199km already in the legs and 36km to go up the Falls climb, 1,322M of elevation at 4.6% average grade with the first 8km averaging 10% (STEEP).

Things start to fall apart here and you make the best of it that you can. Riders were throwing up, walking, suffering cramp, sitting in the shade and riding as well of course. I was struggling with my right tricep and it meant I could stand only for short periods and holding the handle bars was becoming a little difficult, this hampered my progress for the rest of the climb. I had a short rest in the shade after I though my head was going to explode in the 30 degree heat as we climbed. I even walked for a bit as I could walk as fast as I was pedaling and the change of position helped a bit. Back on the bike and I only stopped once more to take my last energy gel as I would have crashed trying to do it on the bike I think. Maurice rode past me here with less than 10km to the finish and egged me on. We had been on 9hr finish pace most of the day so we were easily going to achieve our <10 finish and there was no need to smash ourselves in the final relatively easy 10km.

I crossed the line in 9h:25:18 the 232nd rider over the line out of 1,800 putting me in the top 13% and the special <10 finishers jersey we were aiming for. Maurice was 4 minutes in front of me and Scott missed out on a sub 9hr time by just a few minutes (Scott has age on his side 30’s and is super fit). Richard came in about 15 minutes later also under 10hrs. James came in just under 12hrs with another bunch from Launceston we ride with. A couple of the other group struggled home just under the 13hr cutoff but everybody made it. The event was very well run and executed. It was a tough event and anybody who finished has done an outstanding effort. One older lady came across the line under the 13hr cutoff and just fell off here bike and burst into tears. There was a lot of emotion at the finish from a lot of riders and plenty of ‘F’ bombs about how hard it was.

Sharon spent all of Sunday watching the live timing and sending out updates to all those following the Launie contingent. We had a quick 15km ride on Monday to clear the legs before packing up and returning to Melbourne Airport and home after sitting in a huge traffic jam between Bright and Myrtleford for some time. So I have ticked that one off the list and there is no real need to do it again as going slightly faster than my time this year is not something to aim for really so we will look to other challenges and tick them off having achieved all we set out to do on this one. The next couple of weeks are easy training and then the 24hr mountain bike race that will be way more painful than this event but probably in a different way, stay tuned for that one 3 Peaks was just a warm up event!

Strava playback of a few of us here, see where everybody was during the ride.