Around the Bay in a Day

Tour de Cure and Choice Hotels - a great partnership.


A group of Tour de Cure cyclists hit Melbourne for the very popular Around the Bay in a Day cycle - Sunday 21 October, joining some 14,000 others for a great ride.

Choice Hotels were fantastic in supporting us in Melbourne as we riders descended upon the city from Brisbane, Coffs Harbour, Sydney and Geelong. A special mention of thanks to Nick Wright and David Bayes of Choice Hotels. Thank you for all your effort and support.

Shane and Tom getting ready to show off the Tour de Cure brand

Melbourne was excellent. It was some ride, and well done everyone for getting through it so well, in excellent time, and especially with that searing afternoon heat - hitting something like 37C and gusty north-westerly winds to add to the elements.




There were a number of (non-TDC) riders in pretty severe difficulty on the sides of the road in that last 50km stretch. Some looked absolutely shattered. I saw a couple throwing up.

Denver, - thank you for making the effort of joining before, at breakfast (no choice there though, being in Geoff’s and my room, which became the central b/fast room) and at the finish. I know how much you would have wanted to be out there, and had done a lot of training before your injury, so your support was very much appreciated. Let’s hope full recovery is near and you’re back in the saddle in no time.

Tom Hogbin – great effort! Having just got back into riding after major knee reconstruction surgery, and a very short training time for this event…. You blitzed it and should feel on top of the world. Scary to think how you would have gone with solid and long training behind you. You’ll eat up Tour de Cure ’08 for breakfast.
And how special to ride with your Dad. I know it was a thrill for Ian, and it was a superb moment to see father and son ride together in this major event!


Shane? He does a quick 90km Saturday afternoon warm up. Leads a huge amount of the way a on the day. Gets home to Sydney (finally) and goes for a major spin class on Monday. Inspiring! And here's a photo showing how much he's enjoying it!... Just waiting for the chalk!


Geoff – well done to get the numbers kitted out in TDC kit – Tour de Cure really stood out and a number of riders along the way spoke to me of their recognition of TDC and how impressed they were of our first Brisbane - Sydney tour earlier this year. Great branding. And thanks also for the brown liquid stuff you organised from KOM’s Dave Cottee – as hard as it was to keep down, I’m sure it helped.


Flick, was fab to catch up with you and part of your great team (Kim and Louise) at Body Torque at dinner Sat night and, as always, have many good laughs.

Who designs and makes unreal cycling kits?

The group of 12 of us covered almost 3,000kms, with 10 riding the full 250km and 2 others doing 210km (wimps!). Some noteworthy efforts too with Geoff dropping back and toeing in riders to the bunch was a huge effort, as was his support in repairs – puncture/ handle bar alignment etc. Norm the wizard who is able to repair within minutes a broken bike chain. Legend. Shane, taking the lead back up into Melbourne through the heat and wind… and many other efforts that I was probably too far behind to note, it was a great team effort. And we all returned in great condition, relatively! Note to self.... never show pain, especially when there's a camera in the midst.


The Roads - now they're worthy of a mention. Victoria's roads are so so much better than NSW's. The shabbiest parts were Sydney’s norm. And for those doing Sydney – Wollongong, keep an eye out for the number of tyre repairs. Unbelievable numbers versus what I saw on Sunday. (I wrote this before the Syd-Gong ride, and just to prove my point, I got four (4) pssssssssss.... punctures on the way to the Gong,... so there!) The Melbourne and surrounds road conditions we had made the ride so much easier and more enjoyable.

Around the Bay in a Day - just great! And the evening beers never tasted better! Cheers!!