Walrus wrote:
Just curious, as I don't know of many other organised rides, and those
that I know of don't have the profile of the AAC.

http://www.audax.org.au/alpine.htm

With 4 climbs over 200km and ~3500m ascent...is it the toughest day
ride for road cyclists in Australia?

The Warny is a 300km road race, the longest single stage UCI road race
in the world - it's pretty tough to complete, but it all depends on
what you mean by tough. Some would suggest that kilo is the toughest
race, or the Bendigo Madison, and they'd have a case witrh some merit.
The alpine isn't (IMO) *that* hard, as it's not a race and you can stop
& rest a lot, and remember, you only really have to ride half of it,
the rest is a roll down a hill I've done 2 warnies and an alpine,
and IMO, the alpine, while not a doddle, wasn't that hard (I did it in
'06, when it was 43 degrees up Buffalo in the arvo). I certainly felt a
lot better after the Alpine than I did after I rode the Warny.

Racing is a whole different thing though .... Races aren't about just
doing the ride at your own pace.