Great Victorian Bike Ride Preparation - Less Than One Week To Go

We are super excited to be bringing you a first hand experience of the Great Victorian Bike Ride this year from Miles (9) and Jayne D'Arcy (38).  Being held from 29th November to 7th December, the RACV Great Victorian Bike Ride is a fun, friendly and challenging camping holiday. It's the opportunity to spend a week in another world, where riders of all ages join a canvas community while exploring the beautiful Victorian countryside by bike. Heading into its 31st year, the event is the largest multi-day ride in the Southern Hemisphere, and in 2014, we're heading to Bright and the High Country to take on some of Victoria's most picturesque cycling routes. Tawonga Gap, the Great Alpine Road and Black Spur Drive are just a few of the highlights on this year's ride, with one night spent in the picturesque town of Bright.

Great Victorian Bike Ride Preparation

by Jayne D'Arcy In late October Miles and I started training for the Great Victorian Bike Ride. The route changes each year, and in 2014 it's a ride from Albury to Melbourne via the High Country. Most people do the whole ten-day event, but we signed up for five days so we wouldn't get too exhausted.

Although it's "only" five days, we'll be riding 334km so it's still going to be a huge challenge for both of us.

We wanted exactly one month to try to get ourselves ready. We started by riding to school nearly every day – it's a 6km round-trip. Sometimes we look pretty funny, especially when Miles has his guitar lesson and we have to take his guitar on my bike.

He was pretty excited to be fitted for his new, a blue E-540x16 two weeks before the big event – the 16 gears are new for a kid who's been riding a fixed-gear bike!

We also got him a new ByK helmet, as we'd had the old one for quite a while. We're not used to riding so much, and in fact Miles looked at my car this morning, as we went to school on our bikes, AGAIN and said: "We haven't been in that car for ages!". We've fitted flashing lights to the front and back of the ByK so we can do some night training, too, though we'll only be cycling during the day on the actual ride.

More Info:

• The Event: https://www.bicyclenetwork.com.au/racv-great-victorian-bike-ride/the-event/
• The Particpants: Jayne is a freelance writer for The Age and The Lonely Planet and this year, her 9 year old son, Miles, is going to be recording his journey on his own - giving us a real account of what its like to be on the ride.
• The Bike: Miles is going to be riding the E-540x16 geared kids bike.
• The Pack List: Jayne took a picture of everything they took here. But you can also get an idea of what others take in this article in the RideOn Magazine gives an indication of what riders are taking with them: https://rideonmagazine.com.au/packing-for-the-racv-great-victorian-bike-ride/