Day 3 Chinchilla to Roma
219km
On day three we have one of our ‘big 3’ days, with a 200km+ ride, so it was an early start out of Chinchilla, 6:30am on the road heading for Roma.
Our first stop for the day was in Condamine and we had the most beautiful crew from the Condamine Bell Campdraft committee turn up to welcome us into town and wish us all well. They contributed an extremely generous donation of $5000 to the charity and we are so grateful for their support.
The absolute highlight of the day (and maybe I’m calling this early, but potentially the highlight of the week) is when we were waved down about 11 am, not long after it had cracked 30 degrees, to a family with an esky full of Zooper Doopers! There was a couple of false starts at trying to pass the iceblocks to the peloton moving at 30km/hr, but the support crew collected the remaining icy treats and stored them in a freezer in the back of the car to hand out as we pulled into our lunch stop.
Again, today we were in awe at the number of people who drove their ATV’s down the driveway of their properties, waiting in the hot sun to cheer us on. The buzz and positivity that this provides to our riders in times when the slog ahead still seems to hard to comprehend is immeasurable.
After 219km in the full sun, and literally hundreds of water bottle refills our team finally hit the last stretch into Roma. It was so heart warming to see green fields and new growth in the area… and even a special patch of sunflowers, to bring a little smile to everyone’s faces.
A few cool refreshments and a dip in the pool and we were off to ‘doll up’ for our evening function. In Roma this evening we hosted a dinner for approximately 80 guests, a mix of riders, support crew, locals and some of the key clients from our sponsors in the area. It was wonderful to welcome the crew from Nab, Sunsuper and some special guests from the RFDS at dinner and hear why this event means so much to them.
This evening we celebrated some of the key riding milestones to date on the ride, including some special awards for outstanding achievements:
1st Award of the evening, fastest male rider up Murphy’s Creek: Cam Daley
2nd Award of the evening, fastest female rider up Murphy’s Creek: Kate Warby
3rd Award of the evening, fastest across the notorious 12km gravel track: Toby Hood
Congratulations to each of these three on setting some truly astounding records!
Today we set a whole new set of personal best records, all of our 11 riders that reached a personal best of 188km in a single day yesterday, continued on with a new PB today of 219km. Together with those 11, we had an additional 5 riders, who for the first time ever clocked over 219km in a single day, congratulations to: Dan, Ben, Tim, Geoff and Petrea!
A few highlights from the team today:
Wooley (support crew) – the first 60km today was a breeze, it was super smooth and just a cruisy ride into Condamine.
Jo – Riding next to PC and having him telling me it was ok, we’d get there. His positivity is such a joy to be around.
Bec – Coming into Roma and seeing a beautiful patch of sunflowers growing on the side of the road.
Kate – Arriving in Roma and still feeling good.
