A NIGHTMARE

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 97, 6 December 1928, Page 3

A NIGHTMARE

TOUR DE FRANCE. RACE OF 3500 MILES. MELBOURNE. ..That the Tour de France, the* world’s greatest road race of 3500 miles, lasting a month, was a veritable nightmare, was the opinion expressed by Hubert Opperman, champion Australian cyclist, when he iej turned. | Opperman captained the Australian team. He has received many offers to return to Europe to ride in the next Tour de France, as well as on the track. He was also approached by two leading managers to return to France with a team of road riders, including “Fatty” R. W. Lamb, and has promised to cubic a reply within a month. “You have no idea,” he said, “what a trying race the Tour dt. France is. It is a supreme test of endurance of men and machines.’’ “The Dunlop Grand Prix, held) la,st year over nearly'7oD miles in Victar■h, was helpful to us. Some of the stages in which we commenced in darkness were hideous, a game of blind man’s buff. Crashes were freti quent in the darkness, and we had to guid|a ourselves by the sound of a river 50ft. below. “Hot and dusty roads gave place to snew-ewered mountain tracks, Und practically even- ridbr declared ‘Never again!’ But now that the weariness has passed away, I hop a I will once more speed over the roads of sunny France.” Opperman said there was keen disappointment in France tl:(-jt Lamb was not in the team.