THE Great Victorian Bike Ride started with a bang for those of us lazy sods who joined the ride in Boort.

Conveniently we missed the 114km cruncher from Echuca, which made many of us who are riding just the final three days of the event feel guilty, yet relieved.

Boort turned it on last night, closing the main street and offering every good and morsel they could muster. They even put on an outdoor cinema by the lake.

And so came the bang, a fireworks display at 9.30pm that both entertained and startled.

I was in the latter group, having already confined myself to my nylon prison, otherwise known as a tent, laying on my lilo that appears to have developed a severe leak.

It only took me a minute after I erected the tent to remember why I hate it.

It appears to think it is a spinnaker, taking the slightest breath of wind and turning it into a cacophony of bluster.

At one stage I crawled outside to see what damage the wind storm was creating, to discover it was a mere puff that my melodramatic tent had turned into a cyclone. Stupid thing.

At least the fact you go to bed early means that by the time you discard all the bits where you lay awake thinking the tent is about to collapse, or the sleeping bag is out to strangle you, there is some sleep in there somewhere.

So eventually someone, somewhere among the 4000 on the ride unzipped their tent at a few minutes to 6am. In the domino-effect of paper-thin walls, that meant the rest of us had to get up.

Today's ride was a relatively short jaunt of 47km south to Wedderburn, through cropping country.

Of course, the headwind Gods ensured we didn't have it too easy, giving us merry hell all the way.

At one stage I climbed a small hill at Mysia to take a photograph.

In the silence of a bare paddock and lonely road I heard an exasperated bloke below me explain to his mate as they rode by: "I've been riding into this f...ing headwind for four days now".

Lunch was at Korong Vale, a town of 300 population "on a good day".

"But it's more like 150," a local woman whispered.

She was part of a group with a stall selling food outside the Korong Vale Mechanics Hall.

One table was spread with three offerings.

"One from Croatia, one from Malaysia and one from, err, Australia." This final plate was laden with donuts.

America, we agreed, would probably be more accurate.

I went for Malayan, which could only be described as a pinwheel with sausage.

Despite the wind, it was a beautiful day to ride through crops of vastly different quality.

Only one header was sighted, a John Deere that lay dormant in a paddock it had previously stripped.

And so we are here at Wedderburn, having committed the cardinal sin of the Great Vic -  arriving before the camp opened.

So I am sitting on the footpath opposite Randall's Foodworks writing this, knowing that at some stage I am going to have to resume battle with that stupid tent.

Tomorrow is 80km to Maryborough. Almost directly south, there are going to be plenty of prayers for a northerly wind.