Great Victorian Bike Ride

Appollo Bay to Buninyong : 3 days on the Great Vic

Josha Krishnapillai and Will Thyer completed the last three days of this year’s Great Victoria Bike Ride and sent in these reports. Unfortunately, due to COVID the school wasn’t able to enter a group officially, but hopes to in 2023.

"This year’s Great Vic was my first and I’ll be back again next year! We rode from Apollo Bay to Anglesea, then from there to Inverleigh and finally finished at Mt. Helen, Buninyong. The highlight for me would have to be our first day along the Great Ocean Road, where we had uninterrupted views of the ocean all day.

I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusive and supportive attitudes people had, everyone I had talked to was lovely. One of my favourite people we met on the road was an older woman on an electric road bike who would let us know exactly why we needed an electric bike as she sped past us time and time again. I started nicknaming her the EB ambassador. She very kindly let me hitch a ride behind her wheel to hide from the wind on the last day which I was very grateful for. 

Everything was super organised and ran very smoothly. You don’t need to carry much on the bike at all as there’s trucks that take your bags from campground to campground each day, meals are provided. There’s support following on the road as well as a SAG (support and gear) wagon you can jump in if you’re not feeling it that day.”

~Josha K

"This Great Vic bike ride was my first one in two years and my fourth one overall. But this year felt different, it was the first one where I really noticed the diversity in the people - you would go up one hill to meet a group of elite riders in a peloton just to go down the hill to see a couple of older ladies having a nice conversation while riding along. The characters you meet are at many varying levels of skill, age and seriousness. This makes it quite welcoming, and it's a true showing that no matter what level you're at you can complete and have fun on the Great Vic."

~Will T

Next year's Great Vic Bike ride is running from Orbost to Inverloch (Saturday 26 November 2023 to Sunday 4 December 2023) and we would love to have a proper NHS group, so please feel free to come have a chat with either Will or Josha if you’re interested or have any questions at all. If you’re not much of a rider but this seems like something you would like to do, there’s options for the number of days you can ride (3,5 or 9) as well as we have a very long time till the end of next year to prepare.