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With the Australian COVID lockdowns on the east coast drawing to a conclusion Mary and I took the post omicron plunge and headed to Tasmania this month to join the AllTrails tour from Launceston to Hobart! A ten day tour with eight days of riding and two rest days at Freycinet and Port Arthur. By driving to Melbourne and catching the Spirit of Tasmania we were able to take our Specialized Turbo Creo SL E road bikes and they made the tour so very enjoyable.
Over the eight days of riding I rode in excess of 670 kms and climbed more than 8,000m. Mary's figures were slightly less as she had a hammie strain half way through a day's riding and later I joined one really long ride with steep climb just to see how I would go.
The tour was superb, with the tour crew - Rick and Lou - providing great support, while the 12 riders soon established a great level of camaraderie and support. In addition breakfasts were generally excellent and occasionally superb, while the provided meals (most lunches and dinners) were also of a very high standard, culminating in great meals in Port Arthur and Hobart. Accommodation was as advertised, 3 or 4 star hotels or equivalent with our accommodation in Richmond being a little quirky, but still pretty good.
Our bikes each weigh 12 kgs without the 1kg battery range extenders and we looked at our pre-tour stats and decided that we wouldn't take the extenders as our main batteries should be capable of providing adequate support for even the longest days. We had our bikes in our room on all but one night and were able to recharge them from the room power points without any issue. At our Richmond accommodation all bikes had to stay outside and so our bikes chargers were attached to a power board which was in turn attached to mains power in the establishment via an extension cord. We don't know how it happened (but could guess) but the charging stopped with just 1% power added to each of our bikes. The bike were locked down with a tarpaulin and a locked cable and we only discovered the failure to charge as the bikes were uncovered prior to our ride the next morning.
We had finished the day before with 60% and 58% charge left on our bikes respectively after a 60km ride and we were facing another 80 kms + ride with lots of climbing. It was a great test for the bikes, particularly as we faced over 1100m of steep climbing. I'm pleased to report that even though we used the sports and turbo modes as needed (to beat the 'fast' riders up climbs or to counter strong head winds) we arrived in Port Arthur with out any issues. However we had tested the batteries with my bike in the 'red' literally with less than 10% charge left, while lightweight Mary still had just over 10% left.
One of our riders, Derek, rode a Zoomo Sport e-bike which essentially is an Australian developed urban e-bike which weighs about 28kgs and has a battery life of about 6 hours which apparently will allow the rider to get about 80kms riding up to 25kph depending on the terrain. At the end of the tour I asked Derek, who seemed to ride consistently between 10 and 25 kph, at what point each day did he replace his battery with his spare. His answer was that he had not had to use his spare, but he rode at slow speeds and often turned the emode off and relied on his legs alone. This process kept him within sight of his partner who was on a regular Trek road bike, usually at the rear of the ride, and left him with lots of e-power for the big climbs.
So, did we enjoy the riding experience and would we do it again? The answer is a hearty yes! We really worked the sport and turbo functions hard and they came up trumps. On the day that I rode 119 kms with one big climb and about the last 40 kms into a strong headwind, I only used less than 40% of my charge. Possibly because the bike is so well balanced that riding on the flat or rolling roads, even with a headwind saw me averaging 28kph over the first 40kms and close to 25kph over the whole ride. It's a fabulous bike and I look forward to trying it soon in other difficult conditions.
Our first cycle tour since COVID began was a six day tour organised by AllTrails along the Great Ocean Road which follows the Victorian coast between South Australia and Port Phillip Bay. We were collected in Melbourne early on a Tuesday morning (luggage and our bikes) and bused to a location about 40km west of Port Campbell. Six days later we finished the riding element in Mornside before being bused back into Melbourne to end the tour. in between we had been provided with six lunches, five breakfasts and five dinners, all of which were excellent. We were to fend for ourselves for dinner in Apollo Bay but we all ended up eating in the same pub, such was the camraderie. Richard our tour leader, strongly supported by Lou our bus driver and general fantastic all round helper, looked after us fabulously. The tour was a mix of rides which averaged about 40kms a day and involved bus tranfers when the distances got too long or we were mixing our activities. besides riiding the Great Ocean Road, we had a great time riding e fat tyre MTBs aroung Cape Otway, stopped and admired many view points along the coast, visited an animal reserve, visited the Cape Otway Lighthouse, visited Timboon for lunch on our way to the start of the ride and travelled by ferry from Queenscliffe to Sorrento. Dinners were excellent and ranged from a bbq dinner cooked for us by Richard and Lou at our Otway caravan park (we had a delightful solar power eco-hutwhich was spacious and well appointed) to an amazing dinner at the 360Q Restauant in Queenscliffe to celebrate the end of the tour. Accommodation ranged from motels to cabins to bnb’s and all was excellent. All up a fabulous way to recommence cycle touring after the COVID interuption. We now look forward to joining AllTrails for another tour later in 2021!
Another French tour booked through Tour de Vines, operated by French Cycling Holidays and lead by the wonderful guides, Susan and David. We were collected from our Hotel in Tours and taken along with several other riders to our first nights' hotel in Azay-le-Rideau where we were joined by the rest of the riders. A lovely hotel which set the...
Our first sea based bike and barge tour was a delight. We booked through Saddle Skedaddle, an English company and it was operated by a company called Island Hopping. We joined our boat called the Melody in the Croatian port of Trogir and were quickly settled into our twin cabin on the upper deck. The Melody was a good sized...
Another Road Bikes Tours Italy adventure, this time from Sienna to Assisi. Due to trains from Rome not directly linking with Sienna on weekends, we departed from our train in Florence and were collected by Luca and his cousin Richi who had taken over from Michalia as driver and mechanic. We met the other five riders who were joining us...
We booked this French tour through an Australian company called Tour de Vines and it was operated by French Cycling Holidays. Our guides/mechanics/drivers were Susan and David and they did a fabulous job. We were collected from our hotel in Brive on the Sunday morning and a week later we were back at the same hotel to collect half our...
