Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Tour de Oz: The Extraordinary Story of the First Bicycle Race Around Australia

Tour de Oz: The Extraordinary Story of the First Bicycle Race Around Australia

Harris, Bret

Paperback

Adventurers & ExplorersAustralia & OceaniaCycling

ISBN10: 1460751779
ISBN13: 9781460751770
Publisher: Harpersports Au
Published: Jul 24 2018
Pages: 338
Weight: 1.00
Height: 1.10 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.10
Language: English
Four years before the inaugural Tour de France, four cyclists known as 'Overlanders' set out on a race around Australia.


On 24 November 1896 a wiry and wily bushman named Arthur Richardson left Coolgardie for Adelaide by bicycle. Carrying only a small kit and a water-bag, he followed the telegraph line. After much 'sweating and swearing' on sandy roads west of Eucla, and enduring the scorching heat, 31 days later he became the first man to pedal across the Nullarbor. But within three years Richardson had set his sights on becoming the first person to ride around the vast island continent, not yet a nation, and some 18,507km. On 5 June, 1899, he left Perth, heading north, carrying no more than a swag and a pistol. It took courage, self-confidence, endurance and resourcefulness to tackle such a ride. Richardson would follow dirt tracks, cattle and camel pads and stars in the night sky as he battled thirst, hunger, exhaustion, crocodile attack and spears from Aboriginal warriors to realize his dream. But he also had competition...another party of cyclists with the same ambition. New Zealand-born Brothers Frank and Alex White and wealthy adventurer Donald Mackay from Wallandbeen Station, NSW, were attempting the ride in a counter-clockwise direction from Melbourne and Brisbane respectively. Set against the fledging pastoralist empires of pre-Federation Australia, Tour de Oz, is the extraordinarily true story of a remarkable race to 'circumcycle' the Australian continent - before we became a nation.

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