Day 7. 31 August. Kep to Phnom Penh 155ks

155k and she's all over. 1,100 large Cambodian kilometers. Rounded thats 160k a day.

First 60k on trails then almost 100 k's on the road. We had the wind behind for the whole day - very sexy.

Fabulous day for lots of reasons.

There was a crowd to greet us at the hospital site. I love a cliche as much as the next superstar and it was undoubtedly emotional coming down the stretch. 

Relief, excitement, admiration for my teammates and the cause we were all involved in. 

Yesterday there was zero chance I'd be back, today there's almost no chance I won't be. I'd also like it to start next Monday. It's so much fun doing something that absolutely consumes you.

This is what we did it for

One can of diet coke. That can't be right.

Sorry, wrong picture.., this is what we did it for...

This is the site where the hospital is under construction. There's several hundred piles in the ground right now of 1200 or so that are going in. 

Quite a bit happened over the last couple of days. Im going to throw in a couple of supplementary posts to round this experience out. The next post will be up tomorrow where I'll be allocating some excellence in sport awards for my teammates. I'm also going to cobble together a "lessons learnt" specail report earmarked for the day after.

 I'm cheering up by the minute now so I've targeted that post or the post after as my official return date to being funny.

Leaving that subject aside for a bit I'd nudged it up to around 109 well put together kegsin the few days before leaving. Yesterday..

Whilst we all talked about "leaving a mark" in this country none of us were quite prepared for just how seriously Johnny Harris was going to approach that mission statement. With only a couple of k's left and with dignitaries and vip's in tow in the city of Phnom Penh itself we came across some rare roadworks. To be fair to Johnny there wasn't much in the way of orange bunting or blokes with signs. Seeing a chance to medal JH has taken the inside line, taking out a couple of pedestrians in the process but more importantly getting himself precisely into the middle of 500 m of wet concrete. With that he's cranked it up again! I assumed he was scampering off to a Cambodian equivalent of a Bunnings to buy a trowel to commence reparation exercises and possibly rebuild some trust. Turns out he was simply fucking off as fast as he could. Clever.

Until tomorrow.

Day 6 Sihanoukville to Kep 133 k's

Shortest day on the bike today. Jill had rung ahead and organized seven massuesses from our and a neighbouring hotel. 

Dived in the pool, got clean had a massage and then took these photos from our hotel. 

All the above, it's Jillls  birthday and it's the last days riding tomorrow, that's 1,2,3...  and action. The guides had organized a cake.

A little about the Nannes on tour,Jill Frank and Kain. They are like the Swiss family Robinson (Franks side) meets a Midwestern homecoming queen and has kids. The most photogenic family presently in Cambodia. 25 years between them and riding behind Frank and Kain u had to check for the elastic blue knee brace to differentiate between the two of them.

Ironically it was Kain (son) with the brace.

Seven days Jill was in the vans keeping everyone fed, watered and their sunnies cleaned and dried (impossible to do yourself when u are constantly drenched)

keeping everyone calm and encouraged.

If its possible to have a crush on a family they're it.

This is the bike Ramone, one of our guides was riding on the tour.

I'll cry if I try and comment about that bike and everything it tells me about this world. Let me just say that Ramone and Rith (another guide) themselves are two of the gentlest , warmest young men you could meet. 

There's a different projection to their voices and I was only to willing to do what Rith asked me to do. It's a voice tone I've never heard before and I envied it.These guys in their twenties ( ramone barely) but are very aware of the hospital and are so sincere in their appreciation of what it means for their country that  it will make it hard not to come back next year.

I've been alternating between rooming with Fordy and Matty. I was in with Matty tonight. He's contributed so much. He turned up like a one man camera crew started pedaling at about 120 rpm and hasn't taken his foot off the accelerator since. I've got a bit of a crush on  him just quietly also. Whilst I'm pretty clear in my feelings he has terrorized half of Cambodia charging into roadside houses with his own roll of toilet paper in his mankini bib shorts - he's special. 

It's all happening with a rush.

I'm planning on getting the last days blog done as quickly as possible, then a supplementary overview analysis report ....what???

Fordy had five beers at lunch btw and was never out of first place from there til the finish. I'm having none , have had 11 actual chucks so far and am in Joeys ear each night about how tough it is and how unfair a place the world can be. My whining has gotten so monotonous she gives me exactly 90 seconds then tells me another calls coming in and she has to take it. 

Ok peeps let me get some rest.

Day 5. Kirriron to Shoukouville. 160k

We started out into a strong headwind for the first 30 k or so and were probably averaging 17kph. I had lost the will to live .i was also told it was 185 k's. That's a fair old way into a headwind stronger than one of Mat Talbots mojhito's.

In the first bit of good fortune since I got a fantastic hot weak flat white at Singapore Airport ( so good I ordered a second ) the last bright spot in my life gastronomically speaking, the wind dropped and it bucketed down for almost the rest of the day. The people who had trained in Singapore not as pleased but Johnny Harris and I coming out of a wet Perth winter, big thumbs up.

Here's a picture of me and the founder who some of my friends already know very well.

It has to be said, he's riding pretty well. For some reason I'm yet to fathom the Fordy boy is thriving on this shit. The only upside if u can call it that is that he has been too gracious to date to dish out too much sledging to the rest of us. That said his knocking over a dozen beers at night and a few wines isn't doing much for the self esteem for the rest of us.

The waiter walked past me with an open can of beer last night and I chucked.

Here's a photo of a new close friend of mine, big Steve Jones, who

Isn't going too badly himself on the bike just quietly.

Just to bring a bit of old fashioned Hollywood in we went the selfy 

Speaking of Hollywood here's a picture of Johnny Harris himself putting on a show for the locals They've seen some celebrities thru here before but none as big in the insurance celebrity stakes than Johnny

Thats another celebrity's finger in the foreground.

 had a rush of blood and stayed out with the group til 9.15.pm

Three people fell off the bike today. 

Day 4. Phnom Penh to Kirrirom . 160klms

No stage of today where I wasn't in the hurt locker. Over 100 k's of trails and rutted dirt roads. Most of the group enjoyed it but I found it torturous.

To be honest I thought the ratio between joyous moments and bottom of the hole type moments would be a little more even. 

Below is one of our guides Rith sitting in a peloton that you don't see every Saturday in Perth

Came a cropper 4k from the hotel- here's what it did to the helmet.

I thought i came down quite acrobatically but the eye witness accounts and forensic evidence begged to differ

Got in at 6.15 pm , hopped in the spa , shower and  bed with 2 liters of water by 7.30. 

Is it enjoyable - no.

Is it enjoyable - yes.

You share 4 days like the last 4 with ten other people and it feels like you've known them a decade. I'd like to be able to stay up a little later and have a beer and a coherent conversation with them.

That's it for now.

Day 3, Krakor to Phnom Penh. 155klms

Where to start.

It wouldn't surprise anyone if I was to say you see different things over here. Markedly different and lots of examples of some quite ingenious thinking. Today I saw three people on a scooter ( nothing unusual so far) but the lady up the back was holding a saline bag up above her head with the drip feeding into her elderly mother sitting in the middle. 

If I wasn't sitting on 45 klms per hour I'd have whipped out my iPhone. I and we didn't go close to that speed today. I think we were between 23 and 24 for day. The slowest avg of any ride I've ever done but one of the hardest. I still can't work out what's different..,

I've got a bit of heat stroke or sun stroke so have scuttled off to the room. 

My two roommates have been Matty Talbot who's a force of nature and Bruce Ford. Two of life's genuinely excessive characters, limited to only the positive connotations of that description. They both get a bit thirsty on a hot day. Trying to get out of having a beer with those two gentlemen tonight will be harder than today's ride.

Something I haven't mentioned Is that another guy doing the ride is a guy called John Harris. I briefly worked with John in 1990 or thereabouts, not long after getting to Australia and here he's popped up again. Only two people from Perth and it's him and I. He's got a great mate of his along - Steve Jones - who was one of the three that did the ride last year and unsurprisingly he's just a jet as well.

I hope it's just the sunstroke but I'm finding this ride a little tougher than I'd anticipated. I'm also getting less funny by the day. When I got here I was officially the 7th funniest bloke in Perth. I'd be lucky to crack the top 1000 in Siam Reap as things currently stand. Hopefully life's back to normal tomorrow on both the cycling and the comedy circuit. 

It's 7.17. Time to Viber the family, brush the molars and kip really quite hard.

Day 2. 26 August. Battambang to Krakor

Let me start at the end and work backwards. It rained pretty heavily late arvo which cooled the day down for the last session. Had a bit of a bottom lip moment this arvo. We thought it was going to be 145k which was going to be plenty as it was 37 degrees and 25k of it was VERY off road.

The theme of todays blog is pictures that dont do justice to the points I am trying to make - looking at that photo

It doesn't appear VERY off road even to me and i was there.

The ride was actually 165k  or more - cue the bottom lip. Started a little after 7 on basis we thought short day, and finished at dusk. Obviously stops along the way, but nothing lengthy.

Alls well that ends well and the rain helped drag the 37 degrees down!

Here are My roomies Mat Talbot calves. 

In keeping with the underperforming pictures theme now that I've inserted this photo they don't look as impressive as they do in real life! I'll get a better depiction and post it before the trip is finished.

I feel like I know some of these people quite well already. It's fair to say sitting on your bike for 8 or more hours each day fast tracks your appreciation of the people in the group. 

We visited the school that Fordys company largely funded. It was a holiday but the kids ( hundreds) came in in their uniforms. Photo below.

 It's late and I'm shattered so don't want to purge everything I'm feeling but I would like to publicly pass on my admiration for Bruce and Sharon for lmaking a meaningful difference to a comparatively vast number of lives. Not just for the 850 kids physically going thru the school in this generation but the choices that education will enable the kids to make with their own kids and relatives.

Following is a picture of Frank looking for his sunglasses. The reason I found this quite funny is that exactly the same thing happened to me an hour earlier. Between us we'd asked a handful of people if they had seen our sunnies.

Right people you are keeping me up. Chat tomorrow.

Day 1. Siam Reap to Battambang

Well talking about riding 180k and actually doing it are two quite distinctly different things. It was hot it was humid, most of us set new sweating pb's today.

I'm still somewhere between beet root and tomato in coloring around the chops.

Speedos fluctuated in the group but I had 170 k's. An upside down 170k at that. Can't be arsed rotating it 180 degrees Either that or I'm struggling with the know how to rotate it in this blog environment.

Avg  speed 26 kph.

Lot of buffalo alongside the road. Lots of kids saying hello. 

Below  are some of the team in the dedicated cycling kit. Kit most of us walked straight into the swimming pool not long after we arrived and checked in. Everyone did really well today on a challenging day. Couple of injuries flared up. The youngest guy in the group Kain Nanne is 21 and had his knee injury flare up quite badly. Couple of nurofen and a knee brace at half way and not a hint of complaint all day. Thats a lot of ticker for a young bloke. One person had arguably undercooked their training, not that you could tell by today's performance. 

Right a very quick power nap for 20 or 30 mins then lobby for dinner at 7.20.

K, downstairs in lobby, one beer in. Will post tis and if anything funny happens tonight I'll do a supplementary post.