A Harcourt woman is searching for an antique Hartley bicycle as her family prepares to mark 85 years since their grandfather’s epic cycling trip to Sydney.
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On February 25, 1932 Bill Ewing was one of 26 riders and support crew who set out from Bendigo for a rowing regatta on Sydney Harbour.
The regatta was one of the events which took place as Sydney opened its iconic harbour bridge.
Granddaughter Paula Ewing said she was unsure what made the cyclists decide to make the trip on two wheels.
“I do not know, to be honest. Though cycling and rowing do go together. You can use cycling as cross training for rowing,” she said.
The trip was organised by Australian sculling champion Arthur Cambridge and was a first for the Bendigo Rowing Club.
The club still honors the riders’ achievements, displaying a Webster bike ridden by David Peake in its clubhouse gym as well as a plaque and photos.
Beset by difficulties with boats, the group did not post good results during the regatta.
Even so, current club member Denis Nihil said their achievements were impressive, especially given the conditions they would have faced on the road.
“You can picture what the roads would have been like back then. It would have been a very basic sort of trip,” he said
Ms Ewing said the riders lacked the bike frames or gears modern riders enjoy.
Many of the cyclists used Hartley cycles for the trip and Ms Ewing suspected there may have been a supplier and workshop in Bendigo which sponsored the riders.
She is searching for an antique Hartley with the hope of retracing her grandfather’s ride on the 90th anniversary of the trip.
“I’m hoping there may be people who have 1930s bikes gathering dust in a shed,” she said.
It would not be the first big interstate cycling trip she had undertaken. In 2011 she was part of a group riding from Sydney to Melbourne for charity.
It was only when she registered that she learnt her grandfather had made a similar trip nearly 80 years previously.