Roobaix, part duex!

The Melburn Roobaix 2011 was super rad and I feel so lucky to have been able to participate while I'm here visiting in Melbourne. A 1000 people registered this year, which is more than double the size of last year's ride. I think this is maybe the 5th year that Andy has organized the Roobaix and it's just grown every year. One of the things that struck me as being so cool about this event was that there were people of all ages and cycling ability. There were quite a few older more hard core cyclists as well as the usual young hipster crowd that I'm used to seeing at these kinds of events in SF.
I had to ride like 15-20K just to get to the start of the race. And I stopped for coffee around Federation Square on the edge of the CBD before heading east along the Yara river to the start at the Hawthorne Velodrome. At Federation Square I saw a bunch of people with bikes but I wasn't sure if they were heading to Hawthorne as well, or if it was just a coincidence. But then I saw some guys in FYXO jersey's and I knew they were going to the same place I was so I made friends so I'd have someone to ride with, since I didn't really know where I was going.


(There were so many catlike helmets! Me and my catlike whisper were not at all special at this event, lol.)

We waited around at Federation Square for a bit and then took off towards Hawthorne. It was a beautiful sunny day. A bit chilly and breezy but it felt good when you were charging it up hills and you wouldn't have wanted it to be any hotter or you'd be a giant sweaty mess. It was the perfect day for an alley cat :P
I met these Kiwis, Rachel and Sam and we ended up riding together. They live in Auckland but Sam had couriered with Andy in London and they knew a few other people there as well, who were also super nice.

(That's Rachel and Andy at the start.)
Sam did a lot of the navigating during the ride, which made the whole thing so much easier and so much more fun. It would have been really hard for me to figure out where to go all on my own, and your tendency is to just follow other people on bikes, but half the time they don't know where they are going either and so you waste time and get frustrated and we had very little of that. We made a good team.
There was no prize for 1st place. All the prizes were either for costumes, or I think there was one for best crash (a guy snapped a fork going up one of the cobblestone lanes) and then the rest of the prizes were raffled off. Although I did get a prize for having traveled the farthest. It was nice that everyone wasn't racing for 1st place because with 1000 people that would have been brutal. Instead it was more of a fun leisurely ride, although tough to be sure. There were 12 sectors of cobblestone lanes that you had to find and ride and then there was a question to be answered for each sector. The questions were like, "what number was on the flag pole?" Or "How many storys is #29 Parkhill Drive?"
We made it though all the sectors, which took us all over the suburbs of Melbourne. They said the race was around 40K's and it definitely wasn't the hardest ride I've ever done (Oakland Scrape was way harder, I think) but it was still pretty tough. Riding over cobblestones is not exactly fun. And even though Melbourne is pretty flat we definitely did a little climbing. But we got fabulous views of the city and rode through some beautiful parks and I feel like I got to see so much of Melbourne that I would have never seen otherwise.
At the end you had to drop your manifest in the gold box for the raffle.

And then there was a big BBQ and beers and music and prizes. The top prize was a trip to France to watch the real Roobaix and of course, a golden cobblestone.

They also gave away a Masi bike and another frame and some other stuff. All in all it was a super rad day and I made some new friends and had a really great time! Sam took a bunch of pics during the ride and he is supposed to email them to me, so if he does I'll try to post some up.
The rest of my trip should be a lot more chill. I plan on doing some yoga and soaking up some sun and finishing these books. Looking forward to it, heaps. <3!