and allowed him to focus specifically on his training, and, most importantly, he finished work at lunch-time on Saturdays. He raced fresh and his results started to improve. Financially, he struggled to keep his equipment in good order and pay race entry fees. After board and lodging, he had so little left over that he often had to beg for race fees to be waived against any possible winnings.
Emboldened by his club successes, Opperman now looked to enter longer professional races.15 He saved enough prize money to upgrade his bicycle to a Malvern-made ‘Glenroy’ and signed up for the Bendigo to Melbourne road race covering 147 kilometres. This was by far the longest race he had attempted and would be his introduction to the infamously punishing road surfaces of central Victoria that often determined the results of major races. Opperman defended his nine-minute head start on the scratch men until Malmsbury. As the leading men approached, he jettisoned his co-markers and tagged on to the back of the bunch. The worst roads were the long stretches of corduroy, a surface made from rounded tree-trunks laid across road and the gaps plugged with earth. The bigger riders muscled their bikes over the bone-jarring ground. The hare-like Opperman bounced his way through, and remained glued to the back wheels of the scratch men. They carved their way through the field and he contested the final sprint to finish seventh. The result was modest but it revealed something that would define the rest of this sporting career – that he seemed physiologically and mentally predisposed to endurance riding. Although still too young to understand his full potential, his results suggested that the longer and harder the race, the better he fared.
Now captivated by long races Opperman looked to capitalise on his run of good form. Two weeks after the Bendigo–Melbourne, he signed up for the Cycle Traders’ eighty-mile event. Starting in Essendon, the race followed an undulating course through the sharp hills of the gully country near Sunbury, across to Woodend, the Macedon Ranges and Gisborne. Although shorter, it would be a sterner test of his ability over some of the region’s hilliest and most treacherous terrain. It also exposed him to the backward nature of Australian cycling regulations and the truly dangerous nature of bike racing.
The Australian racing scene in the 1920s was a technological and administrative backwater. Riders were at the mercy of governing bodies dominated by men who grew up riding around the turn of the century and who stubbornly resisted the rapid technical advances in bicycle design in the first decades of the twentieth century. Riders were forbidden from using brakes – which were deemed too dangerous and encouraged inconsistent riding – and instead had to rely on back-pedalling or grabbing the top bar and pressing their forearms against their spinning legs. Freewheel hubs, which allowed riders to coast without their pedals moving around, were also prohibited. Cyclists raced in fear of horrific crashes, of flesh being torn from bone on the coarse metalled roads, or of catching deep infections that could end one’s riding career or worse. Riding under such conditions required successful cyclists to have an unhealthy disregard for personal safety and a well-developed capacity to handle fear.
As the Cycle Traders’ race got underway, a strong southerly breeze pushed the riders northwards to the much-feared Bulla Hill, near Sunbury. As they crested the rise they look down the other side to see the gravelled surface cut with a series of horizontal ridges by recent rains. The wind pushed them over the top and into a fast descent. With no brakes they travelled on to what appeared to be a ‘giant nutmeg grater’. Fear swept the bunch. Their bikes shook, slewed and bucked over the ridges. Their legs spun out of control as they attempted to slow down. Opperman gripped his bars and braced for the inevitable fall. Ashen-faced, the men reached the bottom of the descent and began to roll up the other side. Miraculously, all the riders remained upright.
When the scratch men eventually eroded Opperman’s six-minute handicap, he jumped into their slipstream as they cruised past. The hours sped by. Then they hit the Macedon Ranges with the feared climbs of the Corkscrew and the Curly Hills, and the plunge down to Woodend over corrugated unsealed tracks and corduroy roads. They powered over the course at an astounding thirty-seven kilometres per hour. All had negotiated the hills safely, except for one rider who collided with a stray cow, another common hazard when racing through Victoria’s agricultural heartland. Opperman had survived with the leading group and looked to follow Vic Browne, the strongest sprinter in the bunch. As they approached the final stage of the race, he tucked in close behind Browne’s rear wheel, using his big body to shield him from the wind. Suddenly, a car sped past the bunch only to slow down immediately once it had passed. Clouds of thick dust spiralled from the back of the car and stuck to their sweat-soaked bodies. Then, the car braked and veered violently to the side of the road, splintering the riders as they scrambled to avoid a collision. In the confusion, Browne lost his position and Jack Beasley found the front as they crossed the finish line. Charlie Shilliot came second and Opperman scraped into third place.16
Roads were rarely closed for these races. Official cars following the riders endeavoured to stop local traffic from interfering at critical junctures, but in this case a reckless motorist determined the result of the race and inadvertently set Opperman’s life on a different path.
At the finish, the new owner of Malvern Star Cycles, Bruce Small, presented a dust-plastered Opperman with his prize: a brand new bicycle. Opperman had first heard about the energetic salesman when he took fastest time in the Bruce Small Trophy, one of Small’s early attempts to build a public profile among Melbourne’s club racing scene. Malvern Star Cycles had been around for twenty years, having first opened its doors on Glenferrie Road in 1902. The proprietor Tom Finnegan had been a good track rider and, on the back of a generous handicap, won the prestigious Austral Wheel Race in 1898. He soon realised that his competitive days would soon pass and invested his winnings in the shop. A canny business operator, Finnegan secured endorsements from the best racing cyclists and capitalised on the booming bicycle trade. He also created the simple, stylish company logo, a six-pointed star that matched a tattoo on his forearm.17 When Small took over in June 1920, he wisely made few changes to Finnegan’s successful business model. His intention was to amplify them.
Small had been working as a travelling salesman for Finlay Brothers in Melbourne, returning record sales figures across the state. At twenty-five, he grew tired of making profits for others and looked to start his own business. With limited capital, he borrowed money from his mother, a Salvation Army officer, who mortgaged her home to support her son’s new venture.18 A ‘magnetic’ personality, Small (along with his brothers Ralph and Frank) built Malvern Star into the largest and most recognisable bicycle business in Australia. When he sold the enterprise in 1956, the company slogan, ‘You’d be better on a Malvern Star’, had been seared into the memories of a generation, the result of one of the most audacious and expansive marketing campaigns in Australian history.
Opperman was drawn to Small’s charisma, confidence and knowledge. Their business relationship commenced almost immediately, when Small invited Opperman to ride for Malvern Star. At the time, it was a gamble. He knew little of Opperman’s pedigree, but he wanted to build a stable of high-profile athletes to ride his bicycles to victory. Small offered Opperman a new racing machine in exchange for the Glenroy and he would sell the prize bike in the shop. Small’s confidence in the young prospect was soon rewarded. Opperman won his first championship sash three weeks later at the Senior Cadet’s Cycling Championship in Melbourne.19 Importantly, Small was already connected to some of the biggest names in cycling. Opperman gained easy access to some of the best cyclists in the country, including riders who had raced overseas.
Cyclists who returned from Europe came back transformed. The intensity of racing on the Continent improved a rider’s physical power and mental capacity to endure long, arduous races. It also took their knowledge of training methods, nutrition and race-craft to levels simply unachievable in Australia. Yet, these athletes were men of action, and not inclined to record or speak in depth about their experiences. The only way for an ambitious cyclist to learn from these masters was to ride with them.
One such titan was Donald Kirkham. Lauded as one of the greatest road cyclists in the world, pictures of Kirkham’s fabulous legs had been appearing in newspaper and journals since before the First World War.20 Along with his teammate Snowy Munro, Kirkham was the first Australia to ride in the Tour de France. In 1914 he completed the 5380-kilometre journey and managed to come seventeenth against the best in the world. He also held unpaced records and was a winner of the gruelling