School chaplain Wendy McIntosh said groups of teachers were competing against each other in virtual legs of the tour using exercise bikes, taking in regional Victoria’s major towns and cities including Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong.

Over ten weeks the riders will cover a total of 1592 kilometres.

“One leg is from Horsham to Mildura which is like 306 kilometres so there’ll be a lot of whinging then,” she said.

“The staff room’s all decked out with team colours and Cadel Evans photos and little affirmations all over the place.

“Everyone on staff has jumped on board and is involved.”

Ms McIntosh said the health benefits of the program had already started flowing back into the classroom.

“All the kids are like ‘go red team’ and ‘how far have you ridden today?’, so the kids and even the parents are getting on board,” she said.

“We’ve had other schools that want to get on board because what we’ve done has worked so well.”