When Dave Alley first contemplated lining up to chase the record for the fastest ride around Australia, he admitted he wasn’t much of a cyclist. Yet he had what it took to conquer the brutal two-wheeled challenge and set a record that has endured for more than a decade.
The Queenslander forged on through brutal heat in the north and speed sapping headwinds across the Nullarbor to shave more than three days off the previous mark set by Canadian Perry Stone, when he dropped the fastest time down to 37 days, 20 hours and 45 minutes in 2011.
“I was certainly striving for the record but the most important aspect for me was to be able to come back and to be honest, and to be able to look in the mirror and say, ‘hey, look, I did the best I could’,” Alley told Cyclingnews in a phone interview the day before Morton set out.
Alley – who says he became ‘great mates’ with the man who broke his around Australia running record – sees the process of setting the mark ever higher as an inevitability. There will be no regrets, just enjoyment in the fact that others are going out and chasing his effort as a benchmark and bringing all the good memories back in the process.
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