Читать книгу Oppy - Daniel Oakman - Страница 8

Chapter 4

Speed Kings

Royal Exhibition Building Oval, Melbourne, 2 February 1924.

A priest dressed in black robes and a hat moved through the crowd. At first, his slightly nervous appearance at one of Melbourne’s rowdiest sporting venues did not seem out of the ordinary. After all, motor-paced bicycle racing had been attracting huge crowds for a few years. This evening was particularly exciting and around 20,000 people had gathered to witness the first battle between Australia’s fastest men, Hubert Opperman and Frank Corry. Both riders were signed to rival promoters, and had been kept from each other by contractual obligations. Now, finally, Corry had come to meet Opperman on his home turf.

Amidst the drinking, gambling and good cheer, the priest walked among the throng. He scanned the crowd, moving furtively towards the track. Meanwhile, in the arena, Opperman had already mounted his bicycle and was rolling around the circuit behind Bob Finlay, one of the finest motor-pacing men in the business.

The crowd burst into life. Eyes turned to watch the priest throw off his hat and robes to reveal himself as Corry, his powerful, stocky physique clad in shorts and coloured cycling jersey. He leapt the fence and dashed for his bicycle, carefully arranged on the opposite side of the start line. He strapped his feet into the pedals and sprinted to take up position behind his pacing motorcycle. The pair accelerated to join Opperman and Finlay. The starter’s pistol fired as they rolled over the white line. The crowd roared in unison, their cheers mingling with the noise of the motorcycles now reaching a cruising speed of around seventy kilometres per hour, with the bicycle riders tucked tightly behind.

Then, Melbourne’s unpredictable weather struck, dropping a deluge of rain and hail over the track. The already dangerous surface soon resembled a glacier. Marshalls flagged the riders to a stop. Another man approached Corry and, before he could even dismount his bicycle, served him with a legal injunction forbidding him from continuing. Racing was cancelled and Melbourne sports fans would have to wait until the end of the year before they could finally witness one of the most anticipated showdowns on the sporting calendar.1

* * *

At thirty-four, Frank Corry had over a decade’s worth of experience on Opperman. Born in Bathurst, New South Wales, he had displayed remarkable stamina as a young rider, winning the Sydney six-day race in 1913 when he was teamed with the legendary Reggie ‘Iron Man’ McNamara. On the back of his obvious talent, he moved to the United States of America in his early twenties to race professionally on the six-day and motor-pacing circuit. He returned to Australia years later with a fearsome reputation as the toughest and fastest in the game. Smooth pedalling and a capacity to produce a terrific surge of power left most of his rivals floundering, literally, in his wake. Short, strong and with a white-hot temper, he revelled in the hammy theatrics that defined motor-paced racing. Affectionately known as ‘Stumpy’, his fans delighted in his reputation as a tenacious and unbreakable opponent. He once crashed at over ninety kilometres per hour and went into a coma lasting four days. ‘Still this little man is just as eager to sit behind pace as a man in the street would be to ride a cable tram’, enthused the Sporting Globe.2

In Australia, Corry raced at the Sydney Sports Ground under promoter Jack Campbell, who had been ousted from Melbourne’s Exhibition Oval by a rival promoter, Charles Lynam, in 1923. Opperman’s decision to sign with Lynam meant that he and Corry could never compete, unless their employers agreed. Pressure mounted for a contest between the two ‘speed merchants’.3 Campbell and Lynam, both endowed with colossal egos, were unable to reach any kind of accord on precisely how to bring their top riders together. The antagonism between the promoters, however, did not stop them making private inducements to the riders to break their contracts. Eager to bring about one of the biggest match-ups in cycle racing, Lynam commenced clandestine negotiations with Corry. When Campbell got wind of Corry’s disloyalty he went to his lawyers. Corry went to ground.

In the lead-up to the February match, Corry trained in secret on the Exhibition Oval, knowing that its dangerous idiosyncrasies would be critical to his success. Over the years, it had developed a notorious reputation. For a start, the track was not circular, but pear-shaped, with a narrow end nearest the Melbourne Aquarium. Riders could not maintain a consistent speed and had to make subtle adjustments depending on their location around the track. Without sufficient banking, riders had to slow down when rounding the narrow end (known as Aquarium bend) and speed up at the other. This change in momentum created havoc (and crashes) among those expecting the constant speeds made possible on more conventionally shaped arenas. Then, there was the surface. ‘It was old and weather-beaten,’ Opperman recalled. ‘No cosmetic treatment from bitumen and whitewash could erase the warts and furrows of time.’ It was a circuit ‘full of treachery’ that could only be mastered with hours of study during training or racing.4 Miscalculations were common and many riders found themselves overshooting bends and flying headfirst into the stands. Many more lost layers of skin after crashing on its broken, rasping surface. Such were the hazards of track racing. And what was diabolical for the riders, made for a thrilling night’s entertainment for the spectators.

After the fiasco at the Exhibition Oval in February, Corry departed for the American track season and Opperman focused on other motor-paced matches and the next calendar of road races. By year’s end, Opperman was Australasian champion and raced with an ever growing confidence.

Towards the end of the year, the Sporting Globe brokered a deal between the promoters. By now Campbell was more inclined to compromise because he needed a big event to draw people into Melbourne’s newly opened stadium, the Motordrome. The ‘Drome’, as it was better known, was a circular concrete track with steep sloped banks for motorcycles and motor-paced racing. Under electric floodlights, the arena provided a spectacular forum for the sporting duel.5 The contest comprised five races. The Exhibition Oval and the Motordrome would host two races each, over three miles and five miles. A decider, if required, would be a ten-mile event at a venue to be decided by a coin toss. At more than four times the average annual salary, the winner-take-all prize of £1000 was a staggering sum. The paper could claim without exaggeration to have facilitated one of the ‘greatest and richest cycling matches ever arranged in any part of the world’.6

Winning was not the only way to make money in such a high-profile match. Motor-paced racing, as with other sports, suffered from match fixing. Riders could legally bet on themselves, but it was a slippery slope to start betting on one’s opponent and ‘throwing’ the race. Of course, riders could do this in secret, or make more elaborate deals with their opponents. Opperman made it clear he wanted no part of this. Adding to his already abstemious reputation as a non-smoker and teetotaller, Opperman also did not gamble. ‘I have never bet in my life, and I don’t intend to start now,’ he said, ‘Corry is a wonderfully good rider … I am prepared to stake my reputation against [him]. That is all I have to say on the matter.’7

The match was billed as ‘youth against generalship and experience’ and the men spoke respectfully of each other in the lead-up to the series. ‘For his age I suppose he is the greatest cyclist in the world,’ said Corry of his opponent, ‘Oppy knows the exhibition track so well that I cannot afford to take any risks with him.’ Opperman said it had been his ambition to defeat Corry since he met in the ill-fated race earlier in the year. He then apologised for his boastfulness.8

On Wednesday evening 17 December 1924, a crowd of over 25,000 descended on the Exhibition track to witness the first match. With all tickets sold, a fight broke out at the box office among the disappointed. Others who missed out climbed nearby buildings and structures so that they might catch a view. Inside the ground, anticipation mounted: ‘stern businessmen, for the time being, eagerly conversed with mere strangers in the stand; reticent folk broke through their barrier of silence and entered into the spirit of the night.’ Corry was on an unfamiliar track and in front of a partisan crowd. ‘Our own Oppy is ready!’ yelled the commentator over the public address system and a ‘great wave of enthusiasm and excitement … broke loose when Opperman appeared on the track’.9

Opperman had selected the ever-reliable Bob Finlay as his pacer. Corry had returned from the US with experienced motor-pacer Mario Antenucci, a fast-talking, cigar chomping, smart-arse Italian-American – the perfect match for the swaggering Corry. As the two camps milled around the start line, Corry looked quizzically at Finlay’s roller and demanded that it be measured. He claimed that it was too close to the pacer and that it would give Oppy greater shelter. A ‘wordy argument’ also broke out about the size difference between Finlay and the larger-framed Antenucci and what advantage this gave Corry. To preserve his composure, Bruce Small sent Opperman to the locker room, while he negotiated with the blustering Corry and Antenucci. Small baited Corry, suggesting that he was already making excuses for his likely loss. It did not put Corry off. Instead, it made him angry.10

Corry and Antenucci attacked from the starter’s pistol. The big American positioned his motorcycle just ahead of Opperman, knowing that a bow-wave of unstable air would rush down the side of his machine directly into his path. At nearly seventy-five kilometres per hour the effect was frightening and it forced Opperman to drop back. He followed as closely as he could for a few laps, until Finlay moved him high on the track to avoid the ‘blow’ from Antenucci’s machine. With all his might Opperman stuck to Finlay’s wheel and edged smoothly past an astonished Corry, who was unaccustomed to seeing his rivals recover with such energy. Finlay’s intimate knowledge of the track now came into play. He guided Opperman over the smoothest parts of the jolting, uneven surface. Lacking that knowledge Corry and Antenucci hit the worst sections, losing valuable speed. Unable to recover, Corry dropped away and Opperman won the first race by around 100 metres. Now alive to Antenucci’s aggressive opening moves, Opperman and Finlay won the second race even more decisively.11

Opperman rode a victory lap carrying a bouquet of flowers to a ‘tornado of applause … [and] … the whole exhibition building seemed to shake.’12 He then went to Corry’s dressing room to shake hands. ‘I was lucky to win’, he told him, ‘we had a great race.’ Corry was reported to have told Opperman that he was wonderful: ‘You stand among the world’s best. I tried my hardest to beat you tonight and I failed. I have no excuses to make.’13 Corry, despite his gracious concession, would not be so easily deterred and plotted his revenge.

The following Saturday evening around 30,000 spectators filed into the Motordrome. This time, Corry turned the tables. He rode with power and grace, glued to Antenucci’s back wheel. He never once left his roller, appearing ‘part and parcel of the motor cycle.’14 Opperman lost Finlay’s roller with over a kilometre to go. It was a disaster. As he struggled to regain the shelter, Corry simply roared away with Antenucci to win by over 150 metres.

‘Don’t get your tail down, Oppy,’ shouted one spectator as they returned to the arena for the five-mile event, ‘you can win!’ Corry looked nervous, but drew confidence from Antenucci’s ‘nerves of steel’. Once again, Opperman struggled to hold Finlay’s roller at the higher speeds made possible by the smooth concrete surface. Opperman’s loss of the roller gave Corry a valuable lead. But with his trademark determination, Opperman fought back to his roller and inched away at the gap. Corry ‘slammed on the pace’. He covered the final lap at seventy-seven kilometres per hour to win by eight lengths. Without the home advantage, Opperman simply lacked Corry’s top end speed. In his victory speech, Corry reminded the spectators that Opperman was a great champion but still a relative novice in the pacing game.15

Corry had exacted his revenge in a crushing display of finesse and speed. All that remained was the ten-mile decider. This time, the toss of the coin went against Opperman. He would have to face Corry once more at the Motordrome on 3 January.

Timed to appeal to the holiday crowds, another full house greeted the riders. Opperman was now rated as the underdog and the applause and cheering ‘swelled like a mighty storm’ when he emerged from the tunnel that ran underneath the track. Finlay waddled from the tunnel having donned four sweaters and two overcoats in order to increase his size to that of the imposing Antenucci in an effort to provide Opperman with a similarly sized slipstream to ride in. But by now, Corry and Antenucci had pegged Opperman’s weakness and were not unduly concerned about a few extra layers of clothing. In another unrelenting display of strength, Antenucci towed Corry like a magnet into an early lead. ‘Both pedalled with fluid perfection,’ but it was Opperman who was forced into an energy-sapping chase. He attacked to almost draw level and after five miles had inched forward to within a length. After six miles Finlay turned up the pace, but this time Opperman could not sustain the effort and drifted back by fifty metres. He surged twice more, unwilling to concede victory. But Corry was never threatened. A soft front tyre forced him to ease slightly, but he crossed well ahead of Opperman. ‘A tornado of cheering’ ricocheted around the stands ‘followed by a storm of applause that was almost deafening.’16 The intensity of the effort, despite Corry’s soft tyre, established a new Australian record for the distance.

‘It was Corry’s hour of triumph,’ reported the Sporting Globe, ‘but defeat did not lessen Opperman in the eyes of the public. He was still their idol and would always continue to be.’17 He took the loss well. ‘I am honoured at being defeated by a famous motor-paced follower as Corry … I learned a whole lot. My imperfections were soon manifest, and I realised how much more I had to learn.’18 Before Antenucci left for home he gave Opperman some typically direct advice, telling him to ‘junk his straight forked bike, for swept back forks’ (which would lower the front of his bicycle and make him more aerodynamic) and for Finlay to stand bolt upright, which would produce a bigger slipstream. Opperman took the advice and employed it to great effect over the coming years.19

Although fit and healthy, the intensity of Opperman’s racing and training placed an impossible demand on his immune system. In September 1925, as part of the plan to extend his racing victories to every state, Opperman travelled to Perth. After experiencing cramps during the four-day rail journey, he decided to ride the local track at Kalgoorlie during a three-hour wait, hoping some exercise might loosen his muscles. A massage afterwards revealed red spots across his back and legs. He had measles and remained in Perth to recuperate.

He arrived back in Melbourne a few weeks later, in good health, but too late to defend his cherished Australasian championship title in the Warrnambool to Melbourne.20 Disappointed, he found consolation and support with Mavys and her family. Since they started courting, the Craig family had welcomed Opperman as one of their own. Perhaps reacting to the more reserved and fractured nature of his own family, Opperman was drawn to the warmth, generosity and cooperative spirit that seemed to pervade the tight-knit Craig clan. In Mavys, he had found a companion blessed with good sense, practicality and stoicism. She was the perfect foil to his restlessness and had already shown a willingness to devote herself to fostering his sporting ambitions. Like many women of her generation, Mavys quietly accepted her role as an enabler of a man’s public success. On her eighteenth birthday, Opperman proposed. Happy and in love, they left planning the wedding for another time.21

The gentle conventionality of Opperman’s home life was in stark contrast to the brutal physical tests he pursued on the bike. In the Christmas of 1925, he travelled to the Sydney Sports Ground to compete in a kind of racing that was once nearly banned as a form of torture: the six-day track race.

Early versions of the ‘sixes’ (as they were known) in the late nineteenth century were closer to human experiments than sporting contests. In America and the United Kingdom solo contestants endeavoured to ride continuously for at least twenty hours each day. Riders suffered delusions, hallucinations, strokes and ‘dropped unconscious from their machines’. The extreme nature of the events drew international condemnation as a form of brutality.22 Spared the worst excesses of the early six-day races, Australia embraced a more civilised version of the sport where two-man teams rode in relay, with one rider able to leave the track during quiet periods to rest and eat. Barring short periods when all riders were cleared from the track to repair their bodies and machines, the riders still pedalled continuously, routinely covering over 3000 kilometres during the six days. Riding a ‘six’ was perhaps the most arduous contest in cycling. For the winners, the money was sensational.

Taking drugs (what today would be called doping) to get through a ‘six’ was common, but never openly discussed. To endure the seemingly impossible task before them, riders could access everything from benign sounding ‘health tonics’ containing various stimulants, to alcohol, strychnine, heroin and cocaine. By the 1930s, some six-day riders experimented with pure oxygen as well as more widely available amphetamines and painkillers. Not everyone partook, however, and there is no evidence that Opperman used drugs during his sporadic six-day career.

In Sydney, Opperman was teamed with the talented Victorian sprinter, Eric Gibaud, and together they ‘looked likely’.23 During the race they used Gibaud’s turn of speed to good effect and later, when trying to regain a lost lap due to a penalty, they resorted to some cheeky tactics. After rain fell during a short neutralisation period, most riders returned to the track wearing rain capes and coats. Gibaud and Opperman saw their chance. They decided to risk getting wet and started back without the heat trapping layers. Opperman ‘appeared at full speed in the straight and the spectacle that ensued with the riders in full pursuit with long trailing skirts and coats flying out in the wind was appreciated by the crowd, if not by the victims.’24 As the others struggled with their clothing, Gibaud took over and almost lapped the field. As he prepared to bring Opperman into the race he put out his hand. Gibaud was moving too quickly, Opperman not quickly enough. As they grasped each other’s hand the sudden change in velocity caused them to crash. Opperman fell under his partner, sliding heavily over the ‘skin ripping asphalt’. A six-day race stopped for no-one. Gibaud was forced to continue as the first aid men rushed to tend to the fallen rider. They bandaged his flayed legs from hip to foot in surgical dressing. The thin bandaging provided protection while still allowing him to pedal. Furious at Opperman and Gibaud’s trickery, the other teams raced aggressively for the next thirty hours. They refused any entreaties to slow the pace, which stopped everyone from getting sleep as they tried to take advantage of Opperman’s injuries and restricted movement.

At the next neutralisation break, an inspection of Opperman’s dressings revealed that the surgical lint had fused with his flesh. As the material was bathed and separated from the wounds he passed out. Crashes in the Sydney ‘six’ were so common and ‘bandages and sticking plaster were prominent’. Opperman’s injuries barely rated a mention.25

Despite his youth, Opperman already knew a thing or two about pain and fatigue. But riding a bicycle around a track for six days and nights had been beyond his experience or comprehension. In the end, Gibaud and Opperman took a creditable third against the winning team of six-day veterans Ken Ross and George Dempsey. Though six-day-racing did not, ultimately, suit Opperman’s particular athletic capacities, the mental and physical lessons he learned were among the most valuable of his young career. He came to understand that finding the will to keep riding through desperate fatigue was a routine part of a cyclist’s life. Suffering, he wrote, was ‘part of an apprenticeship [to] moulding one’s mind into a philosophical acceptance of the vagaries of fate and resistance to pain’.26

He also believed that part of his emerging ability to keep riding beyond the point of exhaustion stemmed from his time in the postal service. Whether setting out with a bundle of telegrams on a cold, rainy night, or responding to the trainer’s urges to keep racing, he felt he had developed a ‘habit of obedience’. In these moments he became a cycling automaton, a dehumanised machine that could transcend discomfort and fatigue and move into action at the slightest motivation or suggestion.27

By the time he turned twenty-two, Opperman was among the most recognised and respected sportsmen in the country. Even if he still wasn’t quite a household name, his willingness to talk to the media and his association with the rapidly expanding Malvern Star helped promote awareness of his personality and his gritty performances. It also gave him extraordinary control over his own public image. The nature of road racing made it difficult for spectators to observe competitors for any length of time. Those who lined the roads only glimpsed their heroes for a few seconds as they flashed past. Even for officials and reporters following in cars, keeping track of what was happening could be difficult. This is not to say his reputation as a humble, fair-minded and disciplined competitor wasn’t deserved. Rather, it is to be aware that the language and mystique growing up around him had its origins very close to the source. Sports reporters willingly joined in, grooming the lovable Oppy into a charismatic and inspiring champion. The sports press lavished him with praise, emphasising his most positive and endearing qualities. Opperman was described as clean-living, honest, disciplined, considerate, modest, patient and scrupulously fair. But this was just one version of the man. Only a few close competitors ever witnessed the other – his wholesale transformation into a ‘raging ball of fury with anyone or anything that endeavour[ed] to hinder him in his progress towards his goal.’28

More often than not Opperman’s indiscretions were not witnessed by the public or reported in the press. Yet, on occasion, as a young rider, his fierce desire to win got him into trouble. Having missed his opportunity to defend his Australasian Road Championship title due to illness in 1925, he was desperate to win the next edition of the Warrnambool to Melbourne.

After hours of hard riding on heavy, muddy roads, the men in the scratch bunch had all consumed the contents of their drink bottles (called bidons). Opperman overheard his opponents confess their desperate need for water. Knowing this, he launched an attack in the feed zone. Forced to respond to Opperman’s acceleration, his chasers were unable to take a drink from the volunteers who lined the side of the road. Opperman slowed enough to quickly snatch the last metal cup of water on offer. He then sat up and drank the precious liquid. It was enough to give him the edge over his dehydrated rivals and he broke away to regain the championship sash.29 While not against any written regulations, depriving one’s competitors of food and water in this way was (and is) regarded as a serious breach of cycling etiquette. It was a rare example of unsportsmanlike behaviour and showed just how ruthless he could be. The incident went unnoticed by the sporting press, who were content to rave about Opperman giving ‘the scratch men the slip’ in another ‘classy’ win.30

Some were watching for Opperman to slip up. At first glance, the 1926 Sale to Melbourne looked to have all the ingredients people expected from the champion rider. He overcame mechanical trouble and pushed through the pain of a swollen ankle to take first place as well as fastest time. Despite looking a ‘sorry picture’ for much of the race, he had ‘pedalled like fury’ to win by over four minutes on the other scratch men. On this occasion, Opperman’s mother, Bertha, had travelled to the finish at the Aspendale Racecourse, thirty kilometres southeast of the city centre. Her presence charged his win with emotion, a fact the Sporting Globe reported with typical gusto:

Her pent-up feelings … bettered her, and, with tears of joy, she muttered: ‘Oh my boy – I hope he wins!’ Then: ‘He was foolish to ride with his injured ankle. I advised him not to start, but I know he is riding for my sake.’ … ‘Oppy’ was tired and weary, but game as a lion. His mother’s face was a picture – that of over-brimming joy … The meeting of mother and son was inspiring, and served as an incentive to the tired champion to put in one final, supreme effort.31

And, in what was becoming another typical feature of Opperman’s race wins, he sent the crowd into a state of wild abandon:

A wonderful demonstration followed. Motorists who were looking on at the finish threw their helmets in the air. Women shrieked with excitement and jumped about frantically. Men responded with a roar of applause the like of which has never been heard before at Aspendale.32

Only this time, the story did not follow the script. A week later came the news that rocked the cycling world: Opperman had been disqualified for receiving outside assistance.

An inquiry by the League of Victorian Wheelmen (LVW) alleged that as Opperman rode through the Haunted Hills between Morwell and Moe his chain dropped from the cogs. As he dismounted to replace the chain, Bruce Small, who had been following as a road steward, got out of his car and tightened the rear wheel nuts. In his own defence, ‘Opperman claimed that no time was gained, as he could just as easily have attended to the machine himself.’ That Small was driving in a car emblazoned with a Malvern Star logo did not help matters. He also reminded investigators that he won by over four minutes, so any time gain would have been of no consequence to the outcome of the race. The LVW was an organisation renowned for its inflexibility. The officials admitted the penalty was harsh, but claimed the rules left them no alternative. Opperman immediately lodged an appeal and sought legal advice, telling a reporter:

It came as a surprise to me to find that I was called before the League officials, and a bitter disappointment to hear that I had the Sale race taken from me, on account of something which is an everyday occurrence. The Sale to Melbourne race was one of the hardest races of my life, and I was the proudest man in Victoria when I arrived at Aspendale minutes before my opponents. The action of the League officials is staggering.33

Predictably, the LVW dismissed Opperman’s appeal.34 At a time when most riders did not have the advantage of a team car, some members of the governing body had misgivings about the increasingly brazen nature of Opperman’s relationship with Malvern Star. Of course, professional riders rode to promote their sponsors. But for some cycling administrators (who also had commercial interests in competition with Malvern Star) the degree of support available to Opperman crossed the line as to what they thought was equitable and fair. Whether this led to prejudicial or biased treatment from racing officials, as Opperman claimed, is difficult to prove.35

His close association with Malvern Star – a relationship that had brought him to the very top of Australian cycling – now had the potential to tarnish his squeaky clean image. From now on, he raced knowing that he would be subject to the most stringent interpretation of the regulations that governed professional cycling.

Opperman’s antipathy towards the LVW had been simmering for some time. Since the opening of the Melbourne Motordrome, which operated outside the governing body’s control, the Exhibition Oval had struggled to retain its popularity. Indifferent management by the LVW compounded the problem of falling attendance figures and reduced rewards for the riders. Contracted riders looked on with envy at the Motordrome, which surged on a wave of aggressive promotion, an exciting race program and the novelty of the stunning new stadium.

When he could stand it no longer, Opperman (with Small’s backing) staged a coup, defecting to the Motordrome to form a rival cycling body called the National Cyclists’ Union. Twenty-five other prominent riders joined him. For men who earned a living from racing at LVW sanctioned events it was a risky move. Enraged by their disloyalty, the LVW imposed life bans on all members of the NCU, including Opperman. A ‘thunderclap’ was heard across the cycling world and the stage was set for a ‘titanic’ battle of wills. Opperman and the NCU did not really want the burden of duplicating the existing cycling administration. But they wanted better returns for their riders and the ability for LVW members to race at the Motordrome. True to its word, the NCU ran its own winter program of races, attracting good sponsorship and crowds.36

At the same time, the Dunlop Rubber Company looked on aghast. While spectators cared little about a civil war between cycling administrators, the companies that relied on a thriving cycling industry did.37 Dunlop, otherwise unconcerned with cycling regulations and administration, worried that the fractious climate might damage the appeal of cycling more broadly and consequently reduce the number of bicycle tyres being sold. Rubber bike tyres were seriously big business before mass car ownership and were especially important during the 1930s economic depression when bikes were an essential form of transport.

Dunlop also faced a more immediate problem. In August 1927, Advertising Manager Harry James, announced the company’s decision to sponsor the most ambitious race ever to be staged in Australia, only to have the nation’s greatest cyclist barred from participating. The four-stage Dunlop Grand Prix (DGP) was to be the biggest road race ever held in the British Empire and the second longest in the world. They could proceed without Opperman and others who had defected to the NCU, but it would inevitably compromise the outcome and reduce public interest.

Newspaper proprietors and advertisers also saw the benefits of a united realm. The Sporting Globe along with Dunlop management facilitated a summit meeting between the NCU and the LVW. The issue that hung over the talks, although it was never expressed so baldly, was that spectators and advertisers wanted to see Oppy. He was perhaps the most potent political and commercial force in Australian sport. And everyone, including the LVW, knew it. If pushed, Opperman and NCU could continue to draw riders and sponsors away from the LVW and trigger its slow decline into irrelevance.

The LVW blinked first. The NCU agreed to disband but only if the LVW sanctioned races at the Motordrome, and its members were granted full absolution and allowed to compete without discrimination. During negotiations, Opperman’s (and other members of the breakaway movement) participation in the DGP became an important catalyst to finally bringing ‘peace to the cycling world.’ 38

Opperman’s decision to rebel against LVW jarred with his public reputation as a straight-laced and non-political sports figure. With the affair over and Oppy allowed to once again compete in sanctioned racing, he set about returning things to normal, promptly winning the Sale to Melbourne, finally taking his revenge on the LVW for the previous year’s disqualification.

In preparation for the DGP, Opperman decided to attempt to break the world twenty-four-hour unpaced road record. To do so, he would ride from Mt Gambier, South Australia to Melbourne, Victoria, a distance of more than 600 kilometres. He claimed, with studied nonchalance, that the urge to attempt such a feat was due to an ‘excess of zeal’.39 It was nothing of the sort.

Opperman was at his best riding solo and against the clock. Both he and Small sensed an opportunity to reinvigorate the Australian tradition of ‘record setting’, which had faded somewhat since the war. Since bicycles arrived in the colonies, cyclists had traversed great distances, first between the cities, then through the heart of the continent. ‘Overlanding’, as these rides were sometimes called, became more common from the 1890s onwards when riders such as Francis Birtles, Arthur Richardson, Sarah Maddock, Ted Ryko and others gained national attention for their audacious journeys. Record setting was stimulated by the fierce competition among local bicycle makers keen to show off the speed and reliability of their machines against the harsh Australian environment.

For Opperman it was a chance to stamp his authority on yet another style of riding. For Small, it was an opportunity to bring his champion directly to the people, free of competition or interference from officialdom. If the people couldn’t get to a velodrome to see Oppy, then he would go to them. It was not an accident. It was one of the most calculated and important transitions of his sporting life.

Record attempts had a number of advantages over road and track racing. In races, which were usually too short for Opperman to show his real gift, competitors could combat his great stamina with a better sprint, tactics or race-craft. As Opperman knew well, racing was fickle and dangerous. Months of preparation might be undone by a crash, a mechanical failure, a puncture, or the hasty decision of a race official. A record attempt could be staged at any time and be worked around his racing schedule. Support crews and following vehicles made record setting an expensive enterprise, but the sight of cars, trucks and a caravan following a lone rider across vast distances generated valuable publicity. The major risk was that Opperman might fail. Both he and Small initially minimised the chance of failure by selecting old records that had been set by riders covering more challenging terrain or riding inferior bicycles. On a better bike and on easier roads, Opperman – with his clear capacity to ride without rest for hours on end – stood the best chance of setting a new record. Most importantly, he did not have to share the limelight with anyone.

After weeks of organisation, at 8am on Wednesday 5 October 1927, Opperman pedalled out of Mt Gambier, South Australia bound for Melbourne. His sights were set on establishing a new benchmark in Australian (and possibly world) endurance cycling. Although a solo effort, he was certainly not alone. Behind him followed a retinue of vehicles, including a mobile kitchen that would be driven ahead to prepare food for Opperman as he passed. He spun along at around thirty to thirty-five kilometres per hour, knowing that he would slow during the night. He soon crossed the Victorian border and headed for Warrnambool. In each town, hundreds rushed to the roadside to see him ride by. Those with access to cars or motorbikes joined the procession. Hundreds on bicycles attempted to keep pace, if only for a little while. As night fell, Opperman rode over familiar country on the way to Geelong.

‘Can you imagine anyone waiting on a dark, cold night, just to see a rider flick past?’ asked the Sporting Globe. And yet, they did. Thousands of people waited on the roadside for Opperman to whizz past, bathed in the white cone of a searchlight that had been mounted on a truck that followed a few metres behind him. Groups huddled around fires in a bid to keep warm while they waited.

Australians had seen long distance record attempts before, but rarely had they been reported so widely and in such detail. In part, this was because Small made sure that the press had access to details that would excite the imagination of readers, including Opperman’s diet for the ride; three chickens, four-dozen oranges, a dozen wholemeal bread sandwiches, 250 grams of mint sweets and fifteen litres of milk and beef tea.40

In Geelong, about 3000 spectators waited until 10pm for Oppy to speed in, make a quick stop before remounting and pedalling on. A following ‘glee car’ provided entertainment and moral support, serenading Opperman with rousing renditions of popular tunes. ‘Show me the way to go home’, they sang, ‘I’m tired and I want to go to bed/I had a little drink an hour ago/And it’s gone right to my head.’41 The song’s relevance to the committed teetotaller was doubtful and towards the end of the ride, ragged and ‘nervy’ with fatigue, the singing started to irritate him.42

Opperman arrived at the Princess Bridge over the Yarra River in central Melbourne at 1am before riding two loops to Frankston and back. In the closing hours ‘he looked a pathetic picture, but his great will power came into play … “I shall see the twenty-four hours out if I drop”,’ he said. After dawn, he composed himself to make a final dash to St Kilda. Circling back to Albert Park Lake he nudged the total distance to 670 kilometres, 177 kilometres ahead of Edward Pearson’s Australian record and twenty-two kilometres ahead of the world record.43

While no-one wanted to diminish Opperman’s achievement, a few reports implied that comparing his ride to the pioneering Australian record setters like Pearson might be unfair. After all, Pearson’s 1910 record had been ridden on an inferior bicycle on little more than bush tracks over mountainous terrain as a part of a longer ride between Sydney and Melbourne.44 But by now the tide of praise for Opperman was unstoppable. Pearson himself even sent a gracious telegram congratulating the new record holder. Mr S.R. Lough, Victorian manager for the Dunlop Rubber Company, and past president of the League of Victorian Wheelmen accompanied Opperman from Melbourne to Frankston and back, was astounded at the performance: ‘Opperman is a super-cyclist – a human motor, I suppose there is not another cyclist in the world so versatile as Opperman. He is a champion in every sense of the word.’45

The inherent drama of the record-breaking ride not only sent the press into a tizz, it also caught the interest of the Tivoli Theatre in Melbourne. Within a week, Opperman began appearing on stage regaling audiences with ‘graphic descriptions’ of the journey, his training regime and offering advice to young riders looking to increase their speed. He also starred in a ‘novel act’, riding on a specially constructed stage track. Opperman – along with two other prominent racing cyclists Harry Moody and Fred Keefe – rode stationary racing bikes attached to special rollers that powered little cycling figures around a model track at a speed determined by each rider’s efforts. A painted backdrop of a ‘nice road setting’ gave it ‘the atmosphere of a road race.’46 The ‘cycling act’ (in which Oppy always won) was pure pantomime, only exceeded in strangeness by the theatre’s choice of warm-up acts: a comedian, vaudeville performers and a hat juggler called ‘Stetson’.47

Despite his increasing familiarity with the media, including regular radio slots, Opperman found his two-week experience of thespian life exhausting. Nevertheless, the show proved popular and presented Opperman to a very different audience from the roughhouse drinkers of the motor-paced stadium or the dedicated followers of the road racing scene. Melbourne’s theatre-goers, who included far more women than would typically attend a cycling event, gained a rare glimpse of one of Australia’s most popular athletes. They returned home after a diverse evening’s entertainment with an impression of Oppy as a humble, likeable and engaging young sportsman.

Now firmly back at the centre of Australian cycling, Opperman turned his attention to the looming DGP. He recommenced his stern daily regime of riding over 160 kilometres. New Zealand champion Harry Watson travelled to Melbourne a few weeks before the event and joined Opperman at a Malvern Star training camp. Together they covered around 1600 kilometres in the weeks leading up to the event.48

The £1000 in prize money for the DPG seemed like a fortune. The 1100 kilometres to be covered around Victoria in four stages appeared truly epic. Ranging from 265 to 300 kilometres, the individual stages were hillier and longer than many of the one-day classics Australian and New Zealand riders were accustomed to. They also had fewer opportunities to rest and recover between each effort.

Modelled on European stage races, the DGP was a veritable Tour of Victoria, linking the major regional centres of Wangaratta, Bendigo, Ballarat and Warrnambool. It passed through many places not on Victoria’s standard one-day race routes. Also for the first time, the riders would start together – en ligne (on line) as the French termed it. The final stage would send the riders off individually (according to their aggregate times for the previous three stages) and would follow the traditional Warrnambool to Melbourne route. The result of the final stage would also decide the Australasian road cycling champion for that year.

The race’s challenging nature, combined with the removal of the handicap system, cruelly exposed the lack of depth in Australian and New Zealand cycling. So few had the capacity to survive, let alone thrive in a multi-day stage race. Seven riders dropped out on the first day. By the end of the tour, over half the original field of fifty-nine had withdrawn. With most riders grimly trying to just complete the event, the only real battles occurred between a handful of men. They included NSW champion Harry Moody, Victorian Percy Osborn, and Harry Watson. None were even close to Opperman.

When the men joined forces they could gain huge chunks of time over the rest of the field. During stage two, an intensely hot day, they got so far in front they had enough time for a swim in a dam. The refreshing delay was momentarily extended when Osborn lost a shoe to the muddy bottom, with Watson finally locating the vital piece of clothing.49

Opperman’s effortless command of the road threatened to turn the race into a bloodless and predictable affair. One wag had already dubbed the race ‘Opperman’s Gift’.50 But nothing could dampen the Victorian public’s embrace of the event. The sight of cyclists battling headwinds, dust storms, hills and hot weather more than made up for what the DGP lacked in competitive tension. Equally impressive was the magnificent spectacle of the race convoy as it rolled along with the riders, transforming each of the towns selected as stage starts and finishes. Trucks carried equipment, provisions and the rider’s belongings. A fleet of cars carried race officials, dignitaries, press representatives, radio staff and camera crews. A police motorcycle escort gave the race a grandeur and authority not seen before in Australian road cycling. Though the DGP did not ‘revolutionise road cycling’ in Australia, as the more bullish of the sporting press had predicted, it proved that Victorians possessed a great appetite for European style stage racing.51

More than anything else the DGP was about Oppy. The mere sight of him sent spectators mad. It was only a matter of time before the more exuberant among them were overcome with excitement. In Geelong, during the final stage, 10,000 lined the road to watch him speed past. Police tackled and held at least four onlookers on the ground to prevent them from being run over by the following cars. One man blocked Opperman’s path in an effort ‘to shake hands with him as he tore down the street at twenty-five miles an hour.’52

Pandemonium erupted when he arrived victorious a few hours later at the Melbourne Showgrounds. Over 20,000 people gave him a standing ovation as he completed the final laps of the race, before hundreds jumped the fence line and mobbed their hero. Troopers, police and race officials tried valiantly to clear a space for the Lord Mayor to make his presentations. The formalities were completed ‘under extreme difficulties’ before Opperman was again swamped by the crowds. He escaped as best he could to the change rooms for a bath.53

Opperman’s win generated further interest from the media, which hoped to discover the recipe for his success. They uncovered few secrets, only an unrelenting, machine-like work ethic. He explained that in preparing for the DGP, he first made sure that he placed his alarm clock in the corner of the room so that he would have to get out of bed to reach it:

I was up every morning as soon as my alarm clock went off at five. In the saddle and away off for a day’s hard riding. Back home and in bed by six o’clock – never later than eight – and up again the next morning for another 120 miles on the roads. And, yet, if it were necessary to do so in preparation for another contest, I would be as eager as ever to start the hard, monotonous training. This is essential in road racing.54

His charming earnestness encouraged sports journalists to transform the quiet, little champion into something else; something that transcended the sport that had made him famous. The more he resisted, the more they heaped praise upon him. Like it or not, he was now an inspiration to his generation and a role model for all men. The Melbourne Herald explained:

Hubert Opperman, who recently created a sensation by his magnificent win in the Dunlop Grand Prix, is one of the most remarkable personalities who has appeared in the athletic world for a generation. His views on the Spartan life he lives for the benefit of himself and the sport he loves can only faintly reveal the fine qualities of the man himself. To meet him is to encounter an astonishing and captivating simplicity and a genuine staggering modesty … He is only twenty-three; he neither drinks nor smokes, but yet demonstrates in his performances a will to achievement that ought to be a lesson to many lesser men.55

A week after the Grand Prix, Opperman was travelling by train from Bendigo to Melbourne. A fellow passenger spotted the champion cyclist and held out a newspaper, pointing to the front page. ‘How do you feel about going to France?’ he said, referring to a report that the Herald and Sporting Globe newspapers had opened a fund to send an Australian team, led by Opperman, to compete in the Tour de France.56 The question, he recalled, was ‘like asking a Muslim if he would accept a pilgrimage to Mecca.’ He claimed it was the first he had heard of the plan, but ‘felt like leaving the train to spill out [his] surprise and delight on [his] pedals.’57

At twenty-three, Opperman had reached the limit of what was possible as a professional cyclist in Australia. Many in the cycling fraternity were touting him as not only the greatest road rider that Australia had produced but as equal to any rider in the world. Sending him to contest the Tour was a ‘project … of national importance’.58 But they, like Opperman, knew almost nothing about what awaited him. They did not know that almost ten years of cycling in Australia could provide only the most basic foundation for racing in Europe. In France he would have to begin again.

_________

1 Sunday Times (Sydney), 3 February 1924; The Sun (Sydney), 3 February 1924.

2 Sporting Globe, 17 December 1924.

3 Sporting Globe, 17 December 1924.

4 Hubert Opperman, Pedals, Politics and People (Sydney: Haldane Publishing, 1977), pp. 48–9.

5 Mirror (Perth), 20 September 1924.

6 Sporting Globe, 10 December 1924.

7 Sporting Globe, 10 December 1924.

8 Sporting Globe, 17 December 1924.

9 Sporting Globe, 23 December 1924.

10 Opperman, Pedals, p. 63.

11 Daily Telegraph (Launceston), 20 December 1924; Sporting Globe, 23 December 1924.

12 Sporting Globe, 23 December 1924.

13 Bathurst Times, 23 December 1924.

14 Sporting Globe, 23 December 1924.

15 Sporting Globe, 23 December 1924.

16 Sporting Globe, 3 January 1925; Sporting Globe, 7 January 1925; Opperman, Pedals, p. 64.

17 Sporting Globe, 7 January 1925.

18 Sporting Globe, 7 January 1925.

19 Sporting Globe, 21 January 1925.

20 Opperman, Pedals, p. 66; Sporting Globe, 14 October 1925.

21 Recorder (Port Pirie), 27 November 1928; Opperman, Pedals, p. 86.

22 John Hoberman, Mortal Engines: The Science of Performance and the Dehumanization of Sport (New York: The Free Press, 1992); New York Times, 11 December 1897; Mercury, 14 March 1896.

23 Sydney Sportsman, 22 December 1925.

24 Evening News (Sydney), 30 December 1925.

25 Evening News (Sydney), 1 January 1926.

26 Opperman, Pedals, p. 67.

27 Opperman, Pedals, p. 22.

28 Referee, 29 July 1931.

29 Opperman, Pedals, p. 68.

30 The Truth (Sydney), 10 October 1926; Sporting Globe, 9 October 1926; Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 20 October 1926.

31 Sporting Globe, 22 September 1926.

32 Sporting Globe, 22 September 1926.

33 Gippsland Times, 4 October 1926.

34 Age, 27 October 1926.

35 Opperman, Pedals, pp. 69–71.

36 Sun (Sydney), 16 February 1927; Sporting Globe, 16 February 1927; Referee, 23 February 1927.

37 Australian, 26 February 1927.

38 Sporting Globe, 10 August 1927.

39 Opperman, Pedals, p. 71.

40 Argus, 6 October 1927; Geelong Advertiser, 7 October 1927; The Horsham Times, 14 October 1927.

41 Sporting Globe, 12 October 1927.

42 Port Adelaide News, 21 October 1927.

43 Daily News (Perth), 6 October 1927.

44 The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide) 9 April 1910; Armidale Chronicle, 20 August 1927; Advocate, 12 August 1927.

45 Daily Standard (Brisbane), 7 October 1927.

46 Sporting Globe, 12 October 1927; Opperman, Pedals, pp. 72–3.

47 Argus, 10 October 1927; Age, 10 October 1927; Sporting Globe, 8 October 1927.

48 Jonathan Kennett, Bronwen Wall & Ian Gray, Harry Watson: The Mile Eater (Wellington: Kennett Brothers, 2006).

49 Advocate, 29 December 1927; Opperman, Pedals, p. 75.

50 Referee, 29 July 1931.

51 Sporting Globe, 3 August 1927.

52 Argus, 21 November 1927.

53 Sydney Morning Herald, 21 November 1927.

54 Western Mail, 15 December 1927; Brisbane Courier, 21 November 1927; Advocate (Tasmania), 29 December 1927.

55 Opperman, Pedals, p. 85.

56 Sporting Globe, 30 November 1927.

57 Opperman, Pedals, p. 82.

58 Sporting Globe, 30 November 1927.