before. ‘It’s incredible!’ he said. Of course, to the riders this amount of sustenance was both necessary and routine. ‘Pity you don’t sell fruit and chocolate’, said Roy, ‘because we’ll need some of that for later on.’18
Despite battling rain and the Western District’s persistent winds, the trio arrived in Warrnambool in good spirits. Opperman was in the form of his life. Without concern for the main event on Saturday, he decided to race the prologue event known as the ‘Little Warrnambool’, a twenty-five-mile virtual sprint held on the Thursday before. He won. The main event, needless to say, would not be so easy.
The 1924 Warrnambool to Melbourne was initially distinguished by who wasn’t on the start line. For his third attempt at the prize Opperman was secretly pleased to learn that three-time winner, O’Shea, had recently retired from serious racing. Another notable (but altogether more sobering) absence was friend, training partner and rival Don Kirkham. He wished Oppy a good race via a telegram from the Alfred Hospital, two weeks after a motorist crashed into him as he cycled home after a race.19 The absence of these two greats created an opportunity for new talent. But far from making the task easier, it increased the desperation in the field.
As the race took shape, Opperman found himself in familiar company, riding in a small bunch comprising Jack Beasley, World War One veteran Ernie Bainbridge and newly-turned professional Jack Watson. Beasley punctured near Winchelsea, west of Geelong. His race was over. A light tail wind helped push the pace to within a few minutes of the course record set in 1909. At Werribee, the high tempo forced young Watson to fall back. The remaining duo knew each other well. Though some thirteen years his senior, Opperman worried about towing the canny and strong rider to the line. But Bainbridge was more tired than he looked. Crowds of people lined the final kilometres to the finish. Though Opperman could not detach Bainbridge from his rear wheel before the line, he was able to ‘draw away over the last few yards with a well timed sprint’.20
Opperman’s dominance of Australian road cycling was complete. Just five years since his first race along Dandenong Road with the Oakleigh West Cycling Club, he had conquered the most respected road race on the Australian circuit. At twenty, he was the youngest to ever take the Australasian title. Punters and racing officials alike were stunned by his performances. Harry Hall, President of NSW League of Wheelmen expressed what many were feeling when he declared himself ‘staggered at this lad’s wonderful speed and determination. Opperman is a human machine. He’s unnatural. A superman!’21
Victory on the road brought glory, but if Opperman was to succeed in his quest to become the most versatile rider in the country he had to return to the motor-pacing arena. There he would face his toughest opponent in a showdown that cycling fans had been talking about since the beginning of the year.
_________
1 Hubert Opperman, Pedals, Politics and People (Sydney: Haldane Publishing, 1977), p. 54.
2 David Dunstan (ed.), Victorian Icon: The Royal Exhibition Building (Melbourne: The Exhibition Trustees in association with Australian Scholarly Publishing, 1996), pp. 253–7, 363–9.
3 Daily Telegraph (Launceston), 3 March 1923.
4 Opperman, Pedals, pp. 47, 52.
5 Sporting Globe, 26 September 1923.
6 Sporting Globe, 11 October 1924.
7 West Australian, 15 October 1923; Western Argus, 16 October 1923.
8 Mercury, 15 October 1923; Brisbane Courier, 15 October 1923; World (Hobart), 15 October 1923.
9 Argus, 27 October 1923; Sporting Globe, 27 October 1923.
10 Sporting Globe, 27 October 1923.
11 Sporting Globe, 23 January 1924.
12 Recorder (South Australia), 27 November 1928.
13 The Mail, 20 September 1924.
14 Sydney Morning Herald, 22 September 1924; The Sun (Sydney), 21 September 1924; Opperman, Pedals, p. 59.
15 Sporting Globe, 29 September 1924.
16 Sporting Globe, 29 September 1924.
17 Opperman, Pedals, p. 61.
18 Opperman, Pedals, p. 61.
19 Sporting Globe, 11 October 1924.
20 Mirror, 11 October 1924; Sporting Globe, 11 October 1924.
21 Sporting Globe, 29 October 1924; Daily Telegraph, 14 October 1924.
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