and broke London-Bath-London with 10h 14m 42s, Land's End-London with 14h 9m 0s, and shared the tandem record for London-Bath-London with Ern Milliken, in 8h 55m 34s. He broke London-Portsmouth-London in 1937 with 6h 33m 30s. In each case he had to wear not the cycling clothes he wore elsewhere but a black jacket and black tights that reached to his shoes. They were required by the Road Records Association to make riders "inconspicuous." During the 1935 trip to Europe Opperman, Milliken and Hefty Stuart went to Belgium for the 1935 UCI Road World Championships, where Opperman finished 8th. In 1940 Opperman set 100 distance records in a 24-hour race at Sydney. Many were not broken until decades later. In 1937 Opperman set a record fastest time of 13 days, 10 hours and 11 minutes for the 2,875 miles transcontinental crossing from Fremantle to Sydney, over long stretches of rutted tracks and through soft sand where he had to carry his bicycle in searing heat. Sometimes he fell asleep while riding, and crashed. His time of just over 13 days cut five days off the record, and other records fell by the score. Opperman recalled: "At one point, by the light of the car behind me, I could see a large snake in the wheel ruts, and I couldn't stop. All I could do was land the bike on top of it, hard. I suppose I must have killed it. Then, at Nanwarra Sands, I had to pick up the bike and carry it for 10 miles in the soft sand. We learned that I could gain time by sleeping for only 10 minutes at a time, something I have never forgotten." Doping allegations Opperman always denied taking drugs. "There is no sporting prize worth the use of drugs or stimulants", he said. But John Turner wrote of a book by another Australian for which Opperman himself provided the opening words: Russell Mockridge, in My World on Wheels (1960) had no illusions. In his posthumous biography, completed by friend and journalist John Burrowes and his widow Lindy, with a quite pertinent foreword by Sir Hubert Opperman, OBE, MP, Mockridge wrote in chapter 15 (Road Racing and Drugs) quite openly about the widespread taking of drugs by the 'Grand Champions' of his era [including] Hubert Opperman, who took drugs 'to last a season.' End of career Opperman's career ended with World