Everton

Central Victoria Cycling Adventure - Day 5.
After three days of cycling, I thought that one or two of our much older riders might need the option of having a day off the bike. Little did I suspect that over half of the peloton would decide to take the easy option and leave their bikes unused for the day.

I could understand Michael and Christine spending the day in bed, as they have done this on many previous extended rides, but I was horrified to discover that even our reigning King Gordon also decided to pull the pin and go for a walk instead.

That left only eight of our riders to assemble at Everton Station. We had another guest rider in the form of Karlo Lavicka, who was going to join us for the day, thus binging the final tally to 9 riders.

Our challenge was to ride from Everton Station to Beechworth. This constitutes a climb of around 450m at a gradient that was apparently the steepest on the entire Victorian railway network. In fact it was such a challenge that the trains needed two engines to push/pull them to the top.

John Blain took the opportunity to unveil his secret weapon - a turbo charged ebike with a 1500W (illegal) motor. The bike had so much power that it took off with a rush and almost left John behind.

The only rider on an analogue bike was David McMorran. While the rest of us could rely on such blessed electrical assist, David had to work the way up all by himself.

At least the weather pattern continued unchanged. It was yet another sunny and cloudless day with a top temperature around 24C.

After lunch at the Beechworth Bakery, we enjoyed the much easier, and much faster return ride back to Everton.

Tomorrow, we ride the new trail from Bright to Harrietville and back.Read more