About the Ride
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About the 2007 Great Tasmanian Bike Ride™
2007 Great Tasmanian Bike Ride™
10 – 18 February 2007
In the past, we’ve hammered down the 
east coast of Tasmania, one hundred kilometers at a time. This time, we aim to be nonchalant tourists and new-experience junkies. From the pre-Ride campsite, in the heart of the Launceston Festival, to the welcoming honk of geese at pipers Brook vineyard, your challenge will be how many sights, sounds and sensations you can pack in every day.
The cycling is pretty neat too. There’s rolling, velvet green pastures to admire while you find your touring legs on the way to the north-east vineyards. Then a couple of modest hills to check all your gears on the way to a hill-top campsite at Branxholm, where the old School Tea House and Imperial Hotel will cover tipplers’ tastes. The whistling descent to St. Helens and the Bay of Fires will leave you breathless.
Choose your own direction. The smell of sawdust might make you linger in St. Mary’s, but the pancakes on the climb up elephant pass could be a stronger lure. Either way, you’ll come to think of the stretch through Bicheno to Swansea as the seafood coast. It’s plausible that your appetite for coastal scenery could be sated by a day of pedaling around the hazy arcs of ocean bays, fringed with centuries old forest; think again.
On the way to Swansea, we’ll wave goodbye to the lucky people who have booked a stay on the Freycinet peninsula where they’ll have a day or so to admire the small but perfectly formed Wineglass Bay. While they are strolling over the bluffs in the National park and soaking up the serenity of white sand, azure ocean and broccoli-green forest, the rest of us will be putting our feet up at seaside Swansea. Or at least those of us who haven’t joined a winery tour, voyaged on the Freycinet cruise, or headed inland on the mountain bike to explore the edge of the timber wilderness. So much for Rest Day.
During all of this, our cycling city will be rolling from place to place. It quickly becomes an easy place to live, where breakfast and a hot cup of tea are ready when you roll out of bed in the morning and sizzling showers are waiting at the end of the day. For some, it’s dinner and early to bed, but the Café is the venue for reliving the day’s experiences and enjoying the evening’s entertainment. Your tent is your home, but is this camping? During the day, the small army of people who look after riders on the road and at lunch can be an excuse to stop for a chat or a handy backup when things don’t go to plan.
Achievable daily distances put this Ride within reach of first-timers, while those with more experience will have time for side trips to explore the many tracks and trails along the route.
Either way, the last few days through Triabunna and Orford, following the tumbling Prosser River, will seem to pass rapidly. Pedalling over the historic sandstone bridge and through the town of Richmond, past another crop of vineyards, is the signal to begin the transformation from outdoor adventurer to cultural sponge. The last day’s early climb means your memory of the Ride will be the roll across Hobart’s liquid artery, the Derwent River, to the finale in Hobart. Then perhaps you’ll wonder: was it just today or has it been all week that I’ve been... coasting?
Check out the 2 MPEG Movies on the right - a great way to see what's on offer! There are 2 versions, a Big one (3MB) and a Small one (0.5MB) - but the movie is the same. Choose which ever size best suits your Internet downloading capabilities.
The image above of riders at Mt Wellington, has been provided for use by Bicycle Victoria by Tourism Tasmania and Garry Moore.
