Well Saturday dawned and it was an early morning – Damian was awake and calm but there was a nervous anticipation. Many of the guys were up quite early a combination of not being able to sleep and the “carbo gut” factor – if you don’t know what this is, ask one of the race team when they return.
After packing the bikes up and getting the changes of clothes and riders organised, we had a time of prayer with the team and set off for the Perth GPO, where we would meet Mark Eden from Apollo and a couple of other friends – oh yeah, and that would be where the race would start. This was when we encountered the first challenge – where is the Perth GPO, we knew it was in Perth and that’s where we were – so we were off to a good start. We eventually found it with Mark’s help over the phone. Once there we proceeded to get all the bikes ready as all the riders would be riding out of Perth with Johann following in the Rus bus. We met Mark Eden as well as Brendan and Angus Flood – friends of Mitch, who were going to ride with us as well.
Just before we were about to set off Johann received a phone call from channel nine Perth and they showed up to interview Damian and capture the start of the race – this was an awesome encouragement for the team and Damian. Many SMS’s and phone messages as well as emails were received before the start and these were a huge boost for Damian. We started on time at 9.00am Perth!
The ride out of Perth was uneventful but it looked impressive with 9 riders in convoy and the Rus bus – woo hoo!! The support riders left us after about 20 kms and then we were on our way – only around 3,450 kms to go. From here on the ride went quite well with Damian and the support riders managing to ride within a very good heart rate level. They maintained an average speed of around 25km/hr which allowed us to maintain a good pace and complete 342 kms before we pulled into a rest area just 20 kms before a town called Southern Cross at around 12.25am – the team had ridden for 15 hours and 25 minutes including breaks for lunch and dinner. Most of this day we encountered head winds and cross winds, however Damian managed to keep a good positive spirit – please pray that he can maintain this.
The team has done awesome and in addition to the 53 minutes to cover the first 21 kilometres which all the riders did out of Perth, here is the rest of the statistics:
Mitch rode for 3 hours 5 minutes and covered 63 kilometres
Greg rode for 4 hours 20 minutes and covered 109 kilometres
Rob rode for 2 hours 40 minutes and covered 71 kilometres
Dave rode for 2 hours 48 minutes and covered 78 kilometres
Ray and Johann drove most of the day as we were still awaiting the arrival of Mark Bateman who would be driving the transporter.
The team woke up bright and early at 5.45am on Sunday and after a hearty breakfast of Weaties and other cereals and a Musashi for Damian we set off at 6.30am with Ray riding in support – go Pastor power! Sadly there were quite strong head winds and when that stopped they were cross winds, but Ray did well and rode for 3 hours 5 minutes and covered 71 kms.
The 9.00am kilometre reading and the 24 hour total was 400 kms – this was an awesome effort and the team was extremely pleased considering the conditions. Mitch then went out to continue the second 24 hour period from where Ray left off.. more on that in the next post…..
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