The Wildest Bike Race Around Australia

In 1896, Arthur Richardson became the first person to cross the Nullabor on a bicycle. It was his first taste of the open country and it left him wanting more. Four years later, Arthur set his sights on another record – to be the first person to circumnavigate the entire continent on a bike. But the adventure quickly turned into a race, when three other blokes just so happened to be attempting the same feat, at the exact same time.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
The Nullaball Plane is an unforgiving place. Its desert summers
are scorching, while at night the temp can drop below zero.
But those extreme conditions didn't deter when Arthur Richardson, who
decided the best way to experience this tough terrain was
on a bicycle. Hey, welcome to the poolroom, where we

(00:28):
celebrate the winners, losers and the weird stuff between. I'm
Tony Armstrong, locals reckoned. Arthur Richardson was a quote experienced bushman.

(00:58):
He'd been an engineer under mine and had worked on
cattle stations, which I guess made him feel qualified to
ride a pushbike on the surface of the sun. On
November twenty four, eighteen ninety six, right at the start
of summer, Arthur set out from Courgardi, a little town
about five hundred and fifty k's east of Perth. In

(01:18):
those days, it was a booming mining community with hotels
and a railway line and the first public pool in
Western Australia. So off he goes with nothing but a
small water canteen and a puncture kit. He's riding a
Rover roadster, which is basically not much more than a

(01:39):
metal frame with a seat on top. He's twenty four
years old and like the best of us, he's sporting
a fancy looking mustache. It's not an easy ride. He
gets a couple of punctures at one point. He rides
two hundred and twenty miles without seeing civilization and goes
as far as eighty miles without a spot to fill
his water bottle. Temperatures in the Nullibar, Arthur said, were

(02:03):
about one thousand degrees in the shade, but he made it.
Thirty one days after leaving Colgardi, Arthur arrived in Adelaide
and became the first person to pedal across that formidable
countryside paper said he looked sunburnt. No word on whether

(02:27):
his kit included a hat. After that, cycling other parts
of the continent must have seemed easy, and Arthur said
he starts on a record to be the first person
to circumnavigate Australia on a bike. He said it was
a love of adventure that spurred him mom a yearning
to see the country, although the money he was offered

(02:49):
for succeeding was also a pretty good motivator. Four years
after his Nullerbar crossing, Arthur started once again in wa
Funnily enough, a group of other blokes actually set out
at the same time. While Arthur was going clockwise from Perth,
cyclists Alex and Frank White and Donald McKay were making

(03:12):
an anti clockwise attempt, starting in Brisbane. Unlike them, Arthur
was going alone. He traveled light, about eleven kilos of
luggage plus a pistol. Being an engineer, he was pretty
confident he could repair his bike if he ran into trouble,

(03:32):
and it was said that failure never even entered his mind.
Arthur headed north, where he'd calculated tropical rains should have
cleared by the time he arrived. Not quite. He found
himself up against unrideable box, camped at night in the
pouring rain, and faced flooded rivers and creeks through the
pilbra tracking through mud on foot, his bike chain sometimes

(03:57):
became so clogged up he had to remove it in
and he was often forced to carry the bike above
his head. Eventually, the weather came good and Arthur continued
his journey. He rode stretches of country overrun by huge rats,
following horse beaten tracks. Under a full moon. The surfaces
changed from crack limestone to rocky mountains and flat land

(04:20):
where sheep grazed. As he neared the territory border, the
rivers and creeks were teeming with fish, so many, he said,
you could catch enough to feed twenty people in an
hour for dessert wild figs. The trip continued across the
top End, where people were few and far between. Arthur's

(04:42):
bike took him north to Darwin and he followed the
telegraph line to the old Power Creek station. Occasionally he'd
meet a cattle muster or station owner, and he had
plenty of interactions with blackfellows, who he greeted with the
kind of hostility you'd expect. Western Queensland brought hot and

(05:04):
northerly winds and hard flat land. It was forty six
degrees in the shade. Then who should he bump into?
But he's anti clockwise competitors, the White Brothers and Donald McKay.
They warned him about what might happen if he carried
on the conditions They reckoned meant certain death. Sounds like

(05:28):
exactly the kind of thing someone would say if they
wanted to be the first person to circumnavigate Australia on
a bike. If Arthur was afraid. He didn't show it,
but his mental state was under some serious strain. He
was constantly tempted by the shimmering mirage that seemed to

(05:51):
follow him everywhere. After conquering the northern regions, things got
a lot easier. Nearly five months after his journey began,
Arthur reached Burketown and probably made a bee line for
a cold drink. Riding to higher ground, he was greeted
by the fine streak of blue of the Pacific Ocean,

(06:13):
and then I guess it was just downhill through Sydney
and into Victoria. He copped a bushfire or two en
route to Melbourne, then made an easy run up to
Port Augusta in South Australia. From there he simply crossed
the Nuller Ball once more. In total, he rode for
eight months and covered more than eighteen thousand kilometers. Arthur

(06:36):
Richardson was briefly famous, especially in Wa, but just as
quickly faded to obscurity. He moved all over the place,
working in West Africa, South America and England, and was
badly wounded in World War One, and he got married twice.
But the lesson about that the better. Arthur's ride around

(06:58):
the country lives on in infamy. The record breaking adventure
wasn't just an athletic achievement, it was also an engineering
feat showing just what the bicycle was capable of. Journals
said Arthur's trip showed that the machine could be a
rapid means of locomotion in all classes of country, and
one that would change the way modern twentieth century Australians

(07:18):
got around bikes. You can ride them fast, even in
the desert. Thanks for listening to the poolroom with me,

(07:40):
Tony Armstrong. This has been an iHeart production. Join me
next time for more cracking sports stories. See you then,