Two days later, Sarah and Ernest rolled into Brisbane. A reporter from The Queenslander newspaper looked at them, amazed. Sarah, a ‘modest little lady’, was particularly fresh, he noted, and seemingly unaffected by the 16-day journey. Sarah volunteered that she had actually enjoyed herself a little too much and gained a couple of pounds (a kilogram) during the trip.
After a week staying with friends, Sarah and Ernest began their return journey. Keen to avoid the bushfires still burning in the coastal forests, they opted for the inland route via Warwick and Tenterfield.
Soon after leaving Brisbane, Sarah’s face became sore and swollen. Close inspection revealed a small abscess on her gum. Yet, if she was miserable, she never complained and rode on with her customary stoicism. The pain did force her to rest near Toowoomba, which wouldn’t be on today’s itinerary for anyone travelling into NSW from Brisbane — but was the only way to go in the days before construction of the Cunningham Highway. They managed to ride 130 kilometres for the day, but Sarah was disappointed not to make Warwick that evening.
The only thing worse than her aching face was the weather. The fire, dust and smoke that had marred their northbound journey were now replaced by rain, hail and sleet. For much of the journey they pedalled into a strong headwind. Such were the vagaries of spring cycling in NSW.
Sarah’s abscess finally burst while they rested at Uralla, just south of Armidale. Despite her discomfort, Sarah’s riding style remained impeccable. After receiving treatment for her gum, she was observed ‘gracefully and smoothly gliding out of town’, heading for Tamworth.
From now on, the trip started to improve, along with the weather. They wended their way through Muswellbrook, Singleton, Maitland, Cooranbong and on to Gosford. On Tuesday 1 October they arrived at the Hawkesbury River and took the ferry to Newport, disembarking at 9.15pm. Under moonlight they sped along familiar roads to Manly, racing to catch the late ferry for the city. They finally made it to their home in Stanmore by 11pm.
The round trip had been an eventful one, and yet another first for a female cyclist. As ever, reporters marvelled at her stamina. She positively glowed with good health and spirit, wrote one, and appeared as if ‘she had finished a trifling spin to the city from her home’.
Sarah had proven that women’s cycling should be taken seriously. But her strength and endurance did raise the troubling prospect of gender equality. The ‘age of feminine progress has arrived with bewildering velocity’, claimed the Melbourne Argus, and ‘in the important department of bicycling the ladies are quite able to leave the men behind’. A running joke that Mr Maddock rode in the shadow of his famous wife masked a real concern that in this age of surging female empowerment men themselves might become redundant. As one journalist explained, ‘The husband is evidently only an appendage in the bicycle world. The day is very near when a man will be spoken of as Mrs so and so’s husband.’
Until that day came, however, a lady’s clothing would remain a more pressing issue. Despite all that she had achieved, the preoccupation with Sarah’s riding outfit continued. Now at home, she was forced to dispel a scurrilous rumour that had been circulating in the papers since she left Brisbane. The claim was that she had been wearing the controversial ‘rational dress’ while in remote areas but had donned a skirt when she approached civilisation. Given the heightened interest in female riders and what they were wearing, it is possible that reporters assumed the pioneering Mrs Maddock would naturally have resorted to the provocative modern attire. Sarah was enraged. ‘I did not wear it,’ she stated firmly, ‘and on that dress I have no opinion at present.’ She demanded a retraction, stating that she had never worn such clothing.
Over the next few years, Sarah continued to tour. She also wrote the ‘Ladies’ Page’ column for the NSW Cycling Gazette, in which she advised women on all manner of subjects, such as how to build strength and reduce fatigue on long journeys. ‘Never ride at top speed,’ she counselled. ‘Always feel there is a little reserve strength left.’ She also encouraged women to recognise their true strength and embrace difficulties. For instance, she advised them to resist the urge to dismount when facing a steep hill. It was a ‘bad habit’ that only delayed the ‘acquirement of proficiency’.
Sarah also provided clear direction on how female riders should look after their unmentionable nether regions. ‘Special attention should be paid to underwear,’ she wrote. Wool or flannel should be worn next to the skin for its moisture-absorbing qualities. For those sensitive to excessive heat, an Indian gauze or thin flannelette was a good substitute. Knickerbockers and satin bloomers had their place, of course. But only under a skirt. Ballooning of the dress in strong wind was another common problem. Again, Sarah had the answer. The bottom of the skirts should be gartered to the rider’s ankles by way of a loop of elastic, thus allowing the fabric to fall gracefully into place after each pedal stroke. Underlying all of Sarah’s writings was the message that strength and cycling proficiency were entirely compatible with femininity and graceful deportment.
In the 1890s, when the British cycling press started asking which country produced the most graceful riders, Sarah called for a national response. ‘Let our wheelwomen try and gain the distinction of being the most artistic riders in the world,’ she declared. Sarah saluted the bicycle as the ‘best gift that the nineteenth century has bestowed upon woman’. Female riders had a duty not to give this wondrous device a ‘bad name’ or bring women’s cycling into disrepute. No one would dare accuse the incomparably stylish Sarah Maddock of ever doing that.
Postscript
From 1914 Sarah lived apart from her husband and occupied her time with golf, embroidery, woodcarving and spending time with her family. She remained active until her death in 1955, aged ninety-four.
Sarah Maddock will be remembered as one of the most significant and influential riders in Australian history. She inspired a new generation of women to take up the pastime and gave those already active the confidence to extend their horizons. While racing would be forbidden for many decades to come, ladies with a competitive streak might apply themselves to record-setting. The Sydney—Melbourne route came under attack shortly after Sarah’s pioneering journey. By 1898 the women’s record had already been lowered to 6 days, 7 hours by a Victorian, Mrs H. P. Newton. In October 1938 Irene Pyle stunned the sporting world by breaking the women's Sydney–Melbourne cycling record. The 25-year-old Wangaratta milliner took 1 day, 16 hours, 23 minutes to cover the distance, fuelled by a diet of honey sandwiches and raw eggs, washed down with bidons of fresh milk. Sports nutrition may have changed but, more than eight decades later, Irene’s record still stands.
Chapter 2
ACROSS THE CONTINENT IN PYJAMAS
At first, it merely irritated him. He tried to push the thought from his mind. He tried to ‘pooh-pooh it’, he said, to laugh it off as vanity. But this desire would not be pooh-poohed. Jerome Joseph Murif needed to do something.
At thirty-four, the time was now. He searched the record books looking for a space where he might make his name before he ‘dropped out of sight and out of mind’.
The year was 1897, right in the middle of a golden age of Australian bicycle exploration. Only the year before, the Nullarbor had been conquered by Arthur Richardson. On the eastern seaboard, in 1893, Percy Armstrong had ridden more than 4,000 kilometres from Croydon in far north Queensland to Melbourne, via Sydney. As Jerome researched, an idea took hold, as audacious as it was preposterous:
There was the continent. No bicycle had crossed it. That was my something … To cross Australia on a bicycle, piercing the very heart of a continent, facing dangers, some known and more unknown — it was the very thing.