It’s 8.30am on Saturday morning and hundreds of bike riders have swarmed Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station.
Chains greased, backpacks bulging – groups of teenage schoolkids, families, and greying retirees line up to pile hundreds of bikes into the back of semi-trailers in the bus bay, before climbing aboard a vintage diesel train.
Riders waiting to load their bikes in multiple semi-trailers bound for Wodonga.Credit: Justin McManus
The excitable group is bound for Wodonga, and for a week they’ll never forget.
It’s the 40th year of the Great Victorian Bike Ride – a beloved annual event during which thousands of amateur cyclists snake en masse across country Victoria in the first days of summer, camping at local footy fields and showgrounds in an epic feat of logistics and fun.
Dan Bolwell is loading up his penny-farthing, which he will ride for 500 kilometres between Wodonga and Healesville over the next nine days, alongside 2700 other cyclists.
It might seem an odd choice, but the world from atop a penny-farthing is a blissful place, says Bolwell who makes the bespoke bikes in Bacchus Marsh.
Matt Benn and Dan Bolwell with their penny-farthing bikes about to head off to the 40th Great Victorian Bike Ride.Credit: Justin McManus
“They’re absolutely silent, there’s no chain and sockets. No other moving parts,” he says.
“It’s quite beautiful – to be out in the middle of nowhere, just enjoying the environment, cruising along in silence. It’s pretty special.”
He’s ridden the length of the Murray River, 600 kilometres around Thailand and a circuit of north-east Tasmania on his steed – but there’s nothing quite like the “Great Vic”, he says.
The route changes each year, but this year riders are recreating the event’s inaugural ride in 1984 by taking the train to Wodonga, before cycling to Healesville over nine days (via Myrtleford, Wangaratta, Mansfield, Alexandra and Marysville).
The ride is fully supported; Bicycle Network provides three meals a day and riders don’t have to carry a thing. Fifty-five tonnes of luggage and 1600 tents are driven from town to town.
Ten semi-trailers and 70 support vehicles will cart all the gear required for this festival of cycling, including five shower trucks with 80 showers, eight toilet trucks, and a fleet of portaloos along the route.
The event is powered by volunteers looking after riders out on the road, in case they get a flat tyre or become injured. A team of 50 volunteers on camp kitchen duties will serve 7500 meals a day, and 500 litres of beer and wine each night.
Macleod man Phil Knight, 62, has cycled in the Great Vic for 35 years – including the very first year, in 1984.
Phil Knight, who is taking part on his 34th Great Vic bike ride, boards the vintage train to Wodonga on Saturday.Credit: Justin McManus
“It was hot,” he recalls of the inaugural ride. “We rode every day – there were no rest days – there was no supplied food, but the local communities put on sausage rolls and barbecues.”
“Showers were primitive back then – it was a spray nozzle with a canvas sheet around it.”
An accident in 1992 saw Knight become reliant on a wheelchair, but that didn’t stop him taking part in the annual summertime ride.
“A lot of friends got me back into the riding after the accident, and I’ve been riding a recumbent for the last 30 odd years. I’ve now got my bike converted to an [electric] assist because I was very slow the last few years.”
Despite its long history, a loss of corporate sponsorship has put the future of the event at risk, according to Bicycle Network chief executive Allison McCormack, who says 2024 is likely the last year of the ride in its current form.
“A nine-day moving festival has become cost prohibitive,” she says. “The cost of the events has increased over the years – insurance, infrastructure costs.”
The cost for an adult to participate is around $130 per day including all food, support, luggage transport, camping and nightly entertainment – but McCormack says she can’t increase costs further for riders.
The event has previously been sponsored by banks, state government agencies and the RACV but has been without a major naming sponsor for several years.
Without a new backer, the ride may need to shift permanently to a “hub and spoke” model, where riders camp in one town only and do daily loop rides instead. It’s something McCormack wants to avoid if possible.
“It would be a shame to lose it for so many reasons,” she says.
In its 40 years the ride has stopped overnight at more than 100 towns across the state – with local shops cleaned out, pubs overflowing and the swarm of riders bringing $100,000 a day into regional Victoria.
“Three out of four riders also tell us that they are likely to come back to towns again within 12 months after first visiting on the ride,” McCormack says.
But the true value in the ride is far beyond economics, from Bolwell’s point of view.
“In a day and age where we’re all about [getting off] social media, mental health, fitness – it ticks so many boxes for community and society,” he says.
“Because ultimately what is the meaning of life? It’s not for work – it’s to experience life.”
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