Fred Ray was a champion cyclist during the first decade of the 20th Century, in the days before crash helmets were compulsory and cyclists wore closely knitted outfits to protect themselves against the weather – and the bumps – when the local roads, built and maintained by landlords, were often absolute nightmares, sometimes rutted and roughly patched with cobbles or sandstone or blue metal! However, apart from the horse drawn sulkies, buggies and spring carts, bicycles provided the fastest and most commonly used form of transport and communications. There were no telephones. Cyclists were usually the messengers, riding from farm to farm, family to family, or up to the Post Office and in Fred Ray’s case to the shops at Carlingford.
Fred lived with his family on a large orchard beside Ray’s Road in East Carlingford where work began at dawn and extended to dusk. The ‘shopping centre’ and the railway were at Carlingford.
Trains did not reach Epping (first known as Field of Mars) until 1886 after the Parramatta River had been bridged at Meadowbank. Fred and his brother Robert became very keen and capable riders just on work or social runs around the district. Fred later joined the Curzon Park Bicycle Club and in 1904 won the prestigious Dunlop Inter-Club Premiership Race. His next move was to the much larger Balmain Bicycle Club, where his official number was 303. As there was no road bridge across the Parramatta River, he had to cross by boat or punt. When returning home, he and his friends would wait on the ramp, calling out to the boatman on the other side of the river. ‘How many?’, he would reply and depending on numbers, would bring a boat or the punt over to collect them.
Fred did very well. In 1905, he won the Ten Mile Open Race with the fastest time and two Championships repeating the achievement in 1908. Such was his reputation that, in 1909, he was selected to represent the Club in the Dunlop Relay Race from Adelaide to Sydney, with 149 miles being his share of the distance.
In 1910, he gained major trophies for the fastest time from Bathurst to Sydney and from Goulburn to Sydney, despite ‘spieling off’ (his term) on his way down the Razorback. You can imagine the roads! Spills, with grazed arms and legs, sometimes breaks, were accepted as almost inevitable hazards. In riding down the steep slopes of Victoria Pass on the Bathurst Road, he would endeavour to save his brakes by tying the branch of a tree behind him.
During his years as a racing cyclist, Fred won many prizes and magnificent trophies. Major sponsors and donors of prizes – sometimes superb racing bicycles – were Bennett & Wood, Dunlop and Speedwell. When he married and had a family, Fred withdrew from competitive cycling but always maintained their great interest and love of this sport.
