Life is Beautiful - Great Ocean Road Ride

Last weekend I raced in Townsville at the HotRock 8hr in 25 degrees dusty conditions.

Townsville was perfect in many ways, the people, the trails, the climate, the town, the race...just everything.

I was blessed to be spending this time with Norm and getting some more vitamin D that was still lingering from my trip to Alice springs in May.

great-ocean-road-kookaburra

After returning on Monday to Melbourne to dreary cold conditions, a desk full of work, incesant rain, almost snow, a 24/7 fueled up fireplace & lots of hot chocolates, I was feeling the weight of winter.
Not just the cold, but the crazy lack of desire, the crankiness and keeness to procrastinate all day.

I put an end to that feeling today and rekindled that vitamin D storage by doing a solo 140km road ride along the Great Ocean Road from my house in Forrest to Geelong.
With a music compilation in my left ear, the ocean on the right, and a sweetly winding road for at least 100km, I was in heaven.

As I ascended in an undulating fashion to my highest point at Mt Sabine for 22km, I was kept inspired by the sun shining through the ferns and dripping rain forest, almost melting the clouds away from the surface.  The vision of heat meeting the cold road was a steamy like movie set special effect.

Any little desent or even whilst I was climbing, I was starting to look as dirty as I do mountain bike riding with such a wet road, any spray was splattered over my legs and my white Rabobank Giant TCR advanced roadie named Robbie.

On the crest of my 22km climb I grabbed a quick drink, grabbed the 53 and a few gears on the back, took a squiz over the shoulder to see if I could hog the road to get the best lines and went for it.
There was a car, but it was about 400mts back.  Hah!! It never caught me...I kept looking back and it never caught me.
I thought this must be a tourist, I was only doing 50-60kmph as the road was wet and there was a cross wind the whole way down.

Well I had great time on my descent and was greeted by a beautiful blue ocean, sunshine and barely a cloud in the sky.
The feeling of being happy to be alive and how lucky am I just filled my every being.

For the next 40km into Lorne there was no pain, no hurt, just riding on a cloud of happiness.  I mean I was on top of every pedal stroke, it was like I was dancing, there were no dead spots, just light and fast.
I even saw a bunch of muddy 4wd'ers coming out of a trail and said"looks like fun boys!", on a high called life.

I have to remember to do this more often.

What a wonderful day.