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Cycling has long been part of Shepparton\u2019s sporting heritage, dating back to Hubert Opperman\u2019s connection with the local club in 1929. Photo created by Sora.<\/p>\n
Hidden in History is a new weekly column that unearths the quirky, curious and sometimes eyebrow-raising tales from Shepparton\u2019s past. Provided by the Shepparton Heritage Centre, these articles are rooted in fact \u2014 but told with a wink and a sense of humour.<\/p>\n
An enduring name of Australian cycling, Hubert Opperman, became a member of the Shepparton Cycle Club in 1929.<\/p>\n
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He had not previously been attached to a club, but when he was elected to the council of cycling\u2019s controlling body, the League of Victorian Wheelmen, it was deemed necessary for him to represent a Victorian cycle club.<\/p>\n
Due to Opperman\u2019s mateship with Shepparton riders, including the Ducat brothers Don, Syd and Hughey, he chose Shepparton as his \u2018home\u2019 club.<\/p>\n
To support his move, Oppy gave a lecture at the Paramount Open Theatre, featuring slides from his trip to France as captain of the Australian team that competed in the 1928 Tour de France.<\/p>\n
Following his talk, the first roller cycling contest was staged to great acclaim, with Gordon Ellis streaking the field.<\/p>\n
The Shepparton Amateur Cycling Club was duly formed on April 30, 1931.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cycling has long been part of Shepparton\u2019s sporting heritage, dating back to Hubert Opperman\u2019s connection with the local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-177017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}