Re: Strathbogie bike tour. Jurgen and Peter

 

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jweller@vtown.com.au

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<litchy1levi1@blogger.com>

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Wed, 17 Nov 2021 19:59:22 +1100

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Strathbogie bike tour. Jurgen and Peter


Day 1  Seymour to Euroa   88km,  1.177m climbing

Very smooth asphalt all the way with hardly a car in sight. The signs along the road suggested that many bike clubs use this stretch as a training run. The terrain could be described as undulating. There was no wind or rain but it was sooo cold. It seems that the Bureau stuffed up. You know you are cold when you start looking forward to the uphill stages as a means of getting warm and start dreading the downhill runs because the wind created chills you to the bone. We started fantasizing about the possibility of the motel in Euroa having a sauna with perhaps Swedish blonds. We were so excited by this thought that we took a short cut and shaved off 20 km of a potential 108 km ride. We rode faster and faster to keep warm and in the process arrived in Euroa in record time.  Alas .... there was no sauna, nor were there blonds from Sweden  - but there was a bloody good hot shower. With the heater on full bore in the room we soon became over heated and it was time to check out the best pub in town for dinner.

Day 2  Euroa to Violet town via Strathbogie  55km  737m climbing

A shorty today because we had done most of the hard Yakka yesterday.  Sunshine and warmth greeted us as we stumbled out of the motel room with only a slight hangover.  Again, we rode along smooth, quiet roads along beautiful scenery. This is truly road bike territory. We knew  we were in for a grunt of a climb up to Strathbogie because I had studied the profile.  Gradient on average was 7% but there were some pinches of 13%. It was all doable but  the climb was endless. (about 10km). From the top of the range there was a delightful 5km downhill run into the hamlet of Strathbogie. Today we revelled in the downhill runs. We were rewarded for our efforts with some seriously good coffee at the cafe. From Strathbogie we enjoyed more extensive  downhill stretches all the way to Violet Town.

Guess what !  When we boarded the train to take us back to Seymour where we left my car, the conductor didn't even give us a hard time for having bikes. Things are looking up at Vic Rail.

This is a tour that will definitely be repeated.

Jurgen