A Record-breaking Ride

Harry Hodgson, a resident of Apsley Street, Penshurst, was born in 1892. He saw war service in World War One with the 31st Battalion, and obtained a commission in the Royal Flying Corps as a Second Lieutenant. Resigning his commission, he then served in the Expeditionary Force garrison at Rabaul, New Guinea. Returning to Australia, he found his excitement in motorcycling events, and joined the fledgling Motor Cycle Club of New South Wales.

In mid-1921 he made an attempt on the record time for the trip from Melbourne to Sydney, riding a 1919 model Harley Davidson, fitted with Dunlop tyres. His first attempt ended in disappointment. Learning from the experience, he prepared for a second attempt. On Thursday 3 November 1921, at 2am, he set off from Melbourne Post Office, aiming to complete the trip in under nineteen hours. The route he took was roughly that of the present-day M31.

By the time he reached Seymour, Victoria, he was forty minutes ahead of his schedule, but then he had to pull up for a goods train at a road crossing and lost twenty minutes. When he reached Benalla, he was behind on time; at Albury he was sixteen minutes behind schedule. He gunned it between Albury and Holbrook, covering the distance in 47 minutes. By the time he reached Yass he was ahead on time, and he got to Goulburn with twenty-five minutes in hand. He left Goulburn at 3.55 pm, and arrived at his destination, the General Post Office in Sydney, at 8.11pm. He had covered the whole distance, 564¼ miles, in 18 hours 11 minutes. He broke the previous record by 2 hours 25 minutes, which had been set by a motorcycle-sidecar combination, and the solo record by 5 hours 19 minutes. His average speed, including all the necessary stoppages, was over thirty miles an hour!      

Given the road conditions of the day, it was an incredible feat of endurance and skill, and it led to repeated assaults on the record, which came down dramatically over the next decade. Harry Hodgson competed successfully in other motorcycling events around New South Wales throughout the 1920s and 1930s. He died in 1966.

What would a 1919 Harley-Davidson be worth nowadays?