The Fools Gold 420 is a 420-kilometer bikepacking event that traverses the Goldfields region of Victoria, Australia. The second edition of the event saw 17 finishers, and Em Keogh beat the previous women’s fastest known time by more than 24 hours. Find Em’s story and a collection of photos from the event here…
Words and photos by Em Keogh, additional photos by Will Kerr
Fools Gold was to be my first foray into organised bikepacking events and the second running of the event. I’d been making excuses for some time and never found much time to train for these things, but I had penciled “Fools” on the paper calendar as “one to consider” after some gentle encouragement from my partner. Will, the organiser, had also made a point of trying to make the event more inclusive and wanted to increase the numbers of female and LGBTQI+ participants, which provided me some extra motivation. He’d even offered to loan people gear in the past to get them to the line. What a legend!

This distance and location seemed achievable to me, coinciding with the Anzac Day long weekend. I’ve done some longer solo bikepacking adventures and others with mates, so I have most of the gear I need and some idea about how far I can ride in a day. But I still wrestle with negative thoughts of how inclement weather could impact me, and I’d never ridden into the night before, something I was hoping to give a try this time. I’m a cold fish suffering from poor peripheral circulation, and I struggle to get warm if subjected to cold or wet. The weather forecast for the weekend was looking very promising to remain dry, which boosted my confidence. It was with nervousness and a bit of excitement that I finally signed up just four days before kick-off.
My mate Chris, (aka @otwaypanthergravelcollective) sorted me out this time with a loan of his Garmin mini inReach as my tracker. The night before the ride, I thought it best to drop by to see Jake at my local bike shop in Torquay, Bike Matters, to get a couple of sets of brake pads to change out my half-worn ones. That would later prove to be one of my good decisions after tackling some really steep downhill sections.

I loaded my van with my versatile gravel bike (a Serk Titanium A21) and all my gear and drove up the night before to Maryborough, just a two-ish hour drive from my home in Anglesea, choosing to sleep in the van a few hundred metres from the start (and finish) of the ride, Bristol Hill. The Serk, compared to most others, was quite loaded. I’m what I call a “chronic overpacker,” and despite going fairly light in supplies, I still needed the comfort of a tent, sleeping bag, mat, plus a change of clothes in case things got wet. I’m sure one day I’ll get the courage to try a bivvy!
As best laid plans go, I got myself up in time to boil the water for my coffee and headed to the start line at 6:45 for the 7 a.m. departure. I thought I’d loaded the route on my device okay, but it turned out the course wouldn’t load. First, I accosted Will for a resend of the route, which failed a few times. I then hit up Claire and Monica, the two other women riders doing the event, for some help, but neither of their course resends worked either, and not even pairing my device with Claire’s iPhone worked.
After a few words from Will, who explained he would be out on the route as a spectator this year, the group of 18 riders could wait no longer. It’s tough to problem-solve when you’re stressed on the start line, so I had no choice but to start the ride following in the wheels while I worked out what to do, hoping for a miracle after doing a factory reset on the Wahoo and then calling my partner Erin back home for another resend of the course, all whilst trying to remain upright riding one handed on some techy terrain. Success! About 25 minutes in, I had the course loaded and could carry on two-handed.
I got to my first stop Avoca in good time and found a delicious veggie pastie at the Pyrenees Pies & Takeaway and washed it down with a Bundaberg ginger beer. I got to chat along the way to some of the riders, which was great. I found out from Mark that he had done the Fools Gold the year before, and he told me that some of the “really” hard hike-a-bike stuff between Avoca and Moonabel had been removed this year from the course and that he and some of the other riders last year had only made it to Moonabel on the first day (107 kilometres). This made me worry a bit. I had sketched out a rough plan of trying to make it to St Arnaud by 8 or 9 p.m., which is about 180 kilometres in, and then assessing things from there, either continuing on or camping somewhere for the night. If I was feeling good, then I’d try to ride to Melville Caves, which was around 240 kilometres in, giving me my first proper night ride.
The hike-a-bike bits through the Pyrenees Ranges were the toughest and longest I’d ever done—character building, to say the least. I met Jarrod on one and we slogged up together, each of us indulging in the icy cold beers that Will had left up the top alongside some Cokes and lollies laid out on a log. Beer every time, thanks, Will! Another shout out to Jarrod, who may have picked my bike up off me after I toppled sidewards while standing still about to clip in. I swear it wasn’t the beer.
I was carefully descending some of the rocky terrain about 80 kilometres so as not to puncture and was on some of the less rocky bits when I heard my rear tyre hissing out sealant. I quickly stopped and could see a little sidewall gash. I pulled out my Dynaplugs and stabbed one in. It was not holding air, so I stabbed another one in, and thankfully—with some spinning of the wheel and more vigorous pumping of my hand pump—it managed to seal (I prefer not to use gas if it can be avoided for environmental reasons). Jarrod, bless him, kindly pulled over after I’d just finished sealing it to check I was okay. It still felt a bit spongey after half an hour of riding, so I re-pumped and hoped for the best. I’ll just say I spent a lot of time out of the saddle, deweighting the rear tyre in the hope it wouldn’t blow out. I made it to Moonabel, which was a ghost town on Anzac Day. I hadn’t banked on any shops being open on a public holiday, so I made sure I packed lunch, but I stopped to fill up the bidons with water.
There was some more tough riding/hiking through Redbank Nature Conservation Reserve and Kara Kara National Park, and the beautiful fading light was delightful. I timed my ride up to the West of England Fire Tower in Kara Kara for a gorgeous sunset, long shadows, and amazing views. I met Matteo a bit later charging through, and we had a lovely chat about how beautiful the light was until he rode off into the night on a mission to get to St Arnaud for dinner. I made it to the fish and chip shop in St Arnaud at 7:30 p.m. feeling pretty good. I ordered four potato cakes, ate two, and stowed the other two atop my saddle bag for later, the oil soaking through the paper bag.
I chatted to a very burley guy who’d had a few beers about his two-up game that day at the pub in the spirit of Anzac Day and, as a side note, how the cops were trying to run him out of his town like they did to Ned Kelly! He couldn’t believe what I was doing and where I was headed, but I reassured him I didn’t really have a grasp on where I was going either or what I was doing, having not ridden these parts before or studied the course in-depth.
I made the decision to ride on to the Melville Caves, knowing a fair chunk of the next 60 kilometres was flat or slightly downhill. I was treated to the biggest red full moon rising through the trees and my thoughts turned to all of the other riders getting to see it from different locations and different perspectives. I was loving the night riding, mild temperatures, moonlit white gravel roads, and even the technical descents past the caves where my full-powered, helmet-mounted light came into its own. It was such a rocky area that I wasn’t sure I could get a peg in the ground for my tent so I rode on to Kingower at 244 kilometres, and I saw a church and thought that it was sensible to set up camp there at 1 a.m. rather then ride the whole night. I hoped there might be some dry, softer ground close to the church walls that I could peg into and was rewarded with a quiet and protected nook to rest for the night. It even had the luxury of a drop dunny around the back, one of the nicest I’d seen, with soap and water laid out with loo paper. I pitched my tent, crawled in, tried to get warm, and slept til 6 a.m., woken by the laughing of kookaburras.

I’d planned to be up earlier to start riding with the sunrise around 6 a.m., but I didn’t hear my alarm go off, so I headed off just before 7 a.m. and ran into Claire, who had just passed through on her way to Inglewood. We chatted for a bit and enjoyed the morning light show, bird calls, and the beauty of our surrounds.
I had hoped the long hike-a-bike bits were over, but I had another decent hike up the back of Mt Moliagul on a rocky goat track, juxtaposed by the descent down the other side, a wide, smooth, steep gravel road. The top of Mt Moliagul treated me to the sight of two gorgeous Bunjils (wedge-tailed eagles) gliding above, looking for a meal, and I took time to enjoy their flight paths.
I felt like I could finally hit my straps on the descending gravel roads and dirt tracks that led to Tarnagulla. I almost missed Will, who yelled out “Emmmmmmm!” from his car as I flew by The Welcome Stranger Monument, so I stopped to fill him in on my night. Then it was on to Dunolly in the hope that the bakery was still open after 2 p.m. on a Friday. Bingo, another awesome veggie pastie from the local bakery, and my first coffee of the day. I was doing a bit of math to see if I could make it to the finish line by 6 p.m., and things were looking good. The tracks through Mt Hoogley State forest were bliss in finding some sort of rhythm on the flatter sections, but there were still a mix of rocky uphills to contend with right through until the end, and when you least expected it, another uphill.
I was relishing whizzing through the dappled light when I saw a spotted pardalote, clear as day on a branch, like it was on a page of a book. The details of this tiny bird’s spots were gorgeous, and I was grateful for the moments I was having in nature, one of the big reasons why I like to ride and explore. I swung back into civilization on the outskirts of Maryborough and made it up to the steep dirt track to Pioneer’s Memorial on Bristol Hill at 5:55 p.m., achieving the mini goal set that day to get in by dark but still having to hike my bike the last few metres for good measure. And waiting for me was a solo can of cold beer, fortuitously left there by Will for the finishers. I calculated five finishers must have come before me if he’d brought a six-pack.
The course was one of the hardest ones I’ve ever done, but it was so rewarding. I came away from my first bikepacking event at “Fools” with some lovely new acquaintances I’m sure I’ll run into. I felt thankful to the kindness of strangers on the start line and grateful to Will for organising such a great event and looking forward to taking away the lessons that I learned on this bikepacking trip and applying them to future adventures.
I’d like to shout out to my team, the Otway Rangers, our local bike riding community: the Otway Panther Gravel Collective, Bike Matters, and our local sponsors.
Note from the organizer: Thanks, Em, for riding “Fools” this year and for taking the time to write down your experience. I think our paths probably crossed the most while I was out there spectating this year. I was only out there for 36 hours and was impressed when I found out it was your first event. We don’t like to keep official records around here, but you blitzed the FFKT by at least 24 hours! Well done. —Will
Further Reading
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