MONBULK will be buzzing with excitement next week as the 2005 Jayco Herald Sun Tour passes through town.
The tour is Australia’s oldest stage cycling race now in its 54th year.
An Australian heritage sporting event, the tour is a rolling festival of community events reaching across Victoria.
The tour showcases the state and creates a travelogue highlighting the historical towns, vineyards, forests, fields and mountains.
The tour is an annual sevenday professional cycling state race that draws the world’s top cyclists.
This year’s event features seven stages including an individual time trial and will cover more than 700 kilometres as the tour travels through Victoria before a circuit finish in the heart of Melbourne.
The tour also includes a number of mass participation rides and community events to embrace the broader cycling community and general public.
Starting in Williamstown on Sunday, 9 October, the tour will travel to Bendigo, Shepparton, and through to Marysville and Healesville before reaching Monbulk.
Following a race up the mountain from Monbulk to Sky High in Mt Dandenong the tour will finish in Lygon Street in Carlton on Saturday, 15 October.
Day six of the tour, the Monbulk to Mt Dandenong leg will give amateur riders the opportunity to participate in a dash for cash.
Before the professional riders take off on the deciding stage of the tour, hills cyclists will have the chance to take part in the event which is an 11kilometre fully closedroad event from Monbulk to Sky High in Mt Dandenong.
The first male and female to cross the finish line will each take home a prize purse of $1000.
Following this event, the professional riders will continue the tour on its final leg to Lygon Street in Carlton.
Twenty professional, international cycling teams each composed of eight riders have been invited to compete in the 2005 tour.
