CYCLING

Heath is a cyclist. He started in childhood, in Canada, riding around the neighbourhood with the local kids, riding to school, and to part-time and summer jobs. Then, for a while life, cars and airplanes got in the way of this enjoyable hobby, passion and mode of transport. But more recently in Australia, he rediscovered the joy of, and his passion for, cycling.

Today, Heath cyclists just about everywhere he can, and almost everywhere he wants.

The Triple Crown

There are a number of triple crowns. The triple crown of surfing takes place each year on three beaches on the north shore of Oahu island in Hawaii, where waves often reach twenty metres in height. This triple crown includes the final three events of the professional surfing season: the Hawaiian Pro, the World Cup of Surfing, and the Pipeline Masters.

The Triple Crown of endurance cycling

In early 2017, the triple crown of endurance cycling was coined by Heath Ryan, a Melbourne cyclist who rides as ‘The Dark Knight’. The idea of racing a bicycle across three continents in the same calendar year began during a conversation with Steffen Streich in April 2017. Impressively, Streich had raced solo and unsupported across four continents in four separate years.

Planning commenced that April, and by November Heath Ryan had secured places for 2018 in the Indian Pacific Wheel Race (IPWR), the Trans Am Bike Race (TABR) and the Transcontinental Race (TCR), making him the only person registered for all three unsupported transcontinental road races. Completing these three races would entail: 15,300 kilometres of riding, 112,335 vertical metres of climbing, 52 days of racing, 17 months of preparation, and thousands of dollars in personal out-of-pocket expenses. When he told a friend about his plan, they said: “Wow, the triple crown!” And it stuck.

Triple Crown Logo

A Triple Crown of professional cycling

To make things more confusing, there was already a triple crown of professional cycling. It is achieved when a road cyclist in the same season wins the three grand tours: the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta. [Some include the UCI World Road Race Championship to make the Triple Crown the rider who wins three out of these four events]. Only two riders have ever achieved this: Eddy Merckx in 1974, and Stephen Roche in 1987.

By other definitions, the professional triple crown can variously be defined as: winning each of the three grand tours in a lifetime; winning a stage in each of the three grand tours in a season; or completing all three grand tours in their entirety in the same calendar year.

Like the triple crown of endurance road cycling, there is no official professional cycling triple crown award and there is no prize money. 

What is a valid endurance triple crown?

The triple crown of endurance road racing involves racing solo and self-supported in the same calendar year across three continents. That can be either racing against others in self-supported transcontinental races, or racing self-supported against history and against the clock using Mike Hall’s TCR rules. This can involve: following a set route like that of the Trans Am or the now-defunct Indian Pacific Wheel Race, following a historic route like that of the early Australian overlanders, or taking the shortest route.

Heath Ryan’s time in March 2018 of 13 days, 10 hours and 4 minutes was the fastest self-supported time from Perth to Sydney on a bicycle. He was also fortunate enough to complete the 6,734-km Trans Am Bike Race in June 2018, and the 4,000-km TCR in August 2018. So by the above definition that is a valid endurance cycling triple crown.

You can call yourself an overlander

If you ride a bicycle from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean (or from Darwin to Adelaide) you can call yourself an overlander, joining a tradition going back over 130 years.

The bicycle is part of Australia’s history and psyche, and the overlander club is an illustrious club indeed.

7 Peaks as One Stage

To ride an event as one stage means to ride continuously, stopping as required for food and sleep, with the clock never stopping. In the Victorian Alps northeast of Melbourne lie seven mountains, each with a ski chalet at the summit. Riding from the bottom of the first mountain to the top of the final mountain, with each chalet as a checkpoint for the seven climbs, defines the ‘7 Peaks as one stage’ event.

From 14 to 16 December 2013, Australian Joel Nicholson rode the seven Victorian peaks as one stage, with car support from friends and family. Nicholson started his ride at Icy Creek, but his ‘7 Peaks as one stage’ challenge time started about 20 kilometres later at the base of Mount Baw Baw, and finished at the top of the Falls Creek climb.

Nicholson climbed and descended Mount Baw Baw and then rode to Marysville and completed Lake Mountain. Riding via Mansfield he then achieved Mount Buller before riding to Porepunkah near the town of Bright to climb Mount Buffalo. After descending Buffalo, he rode over Tawonga Gap and climbed Falls Creek before descending the back of Falls Creek to Omeo and then climbing to Dinner Plain chalet on the way to Mount Hotham. Finally, he descended and climbed back up Mount Hotham to the chalet at the summit. Nicholson completed ‘7 Peaks as one stage’ as a supported event in 71 hours and 21 minutes, or two days, 23 hours, and 21 minutes. The total distance was approximately 956 kilometres of riding with over 15,000 vertical metres of climbing.

Nicholson’s record stood unbroken until 2017 when Heath ‘The Dark Knight’ Ryan, from 15 to 17 December 2017, completed the same challenge as a solo and unsupported effort in 68 hours and 56 minutes, or two days, 20 hours and 56 minutes (two hours and 25 minutes faster than Nicholson). Ryan only accessed food and lodging that was commercially available to anyone. The total distance covered was 901 kilometres, which included 15,314 vertical metres of climbing.

Ryan’s route differed to Nicholson’s in that Ryan first climbed and descended Mount Baw Baw, and then climbed and descended Lake Mountain, Mount Buller, Mount Buffalo, Mount Hotham, Dinner Plain via Omeo, and then finally climbed Falls Creek via Tawonga Gap.

Click here to read the full story.

[7 Peaks as one stage]

A three-year obsession

Heath Ryan discovered his passion for endurance cycling after a trip to the Tour de France in July 2014.

Unfortunately, as we were driven to the bottom of most of the climbs, I found myself wishing for the opportunity to ride between the climbs, sort of like the Tour de France pros did.

So, in January 2015, Ryan mapped a route from the bottom of Mount Baw Baw to the top of Dinner Plain which would include the other five peaks in between. He successfully rode that route – 1,105 kilometre and 16,673 vertical metres of climbing – over six days in 2015.

Ryan soon learned a similar challenge had previously been completed by Joel Nicholson, but in under three days. And so, an obsession was born – to ride all seven Victorian peaks as one stage, solo and unsupported, in a shorter time than Nicholson’s 2013 benchmark achievement.

After successfully completing 5-day and 4-day attempts in February and December 2016 respectively, Ryan mapped the shortest possible route and then secretly set off – solo and unsupported – in mid-December 2017 to attempt to complete the ‘7 Peaks as one stage’ in under Nicholson’s time.

The final five kilometres to Falls Creek village were the hardest mentally. That’s where you can see the lights of the village, but it’s still not over. You have to keep climbing, and climbing. And it really hurts.

The challenge of climbing the 7 Peaks as a single stage, pioneered by Joel Nicholson in 2013 and an obsession for Heath Ryan, was finally put to rest in December 2017.

Source: Moody, K, The Indefatigables, Black Knight Books, Melbourne, 2020.

The Overlander Bike Race

Designed as a point-to-point race that followed the route taken by Vic Browne in 1969 (who broke Hubert Opperman’s 1937 record ride from Perth to Sydney) and by Graham Woodrup in 1988 (who still holds the record from Perth to Sydney via the capitals), The Overlander Bike Race is currently a route with a record just waiting to be broken. It wasn’t run in 2019, and Covid-19 impacted the world in 2020.

There remain many ways to ride a bicycle across Australia, and the records are still there to be broken:

 

  • At 10 days, 17 hours, 56 minutes and 35 seconds across 4,354 km, Australian Graham Woodrup’s August 1988 supported record time from Perth to Sydney via the capitals (Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra) still stands.
  • On 17 January 2017, Austrian Christoph Strasser set the fasted supported time from Perth to Sydney, bypassing the capitals, of 6 days, 10 hours and 58 minutes across 3,942 km.
  • At 13 days, 10 hours and 4 minutes across 4,354 km, Australian Heath Ryan’s March 2018 unsupported, solo record from Perth to Sydney via the capitals (Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra) also remains unbroken – so far.

More details can be found at: theoverlandbikerace.com.au, email: theoverlanderbikerace@gmail.com, Facebook: The Overlander Bike Race, Instagram: @theoverlanderbikerace, or Twitter: @HeathRyan16