Bicycle riding shearers drew the attention of the small town of Wanaaring's correspondent in north western New South Wales in 1899. Shearers choosing bikes as their chief mode of transport were becoming the majority over horse riding shearers, even in a town which is today considered "remote" - "I notice this season very few shearers with horses. The bicycle has superseded them. On a rough calculation I should say that over £2000 in bikes have been spent in the district this shearing, and consignments arrive by every coach from Bourke." ¹

By 1902 the transition from horse to bike was complete at one shed on the Balonne River, Boombah station. The St George Standard reported that "It is very noticeable this year that the shearer's steed is the bicycle." ² The same year galloping shearer squadrons disappeared from view replaced by legions of devoted shearer bicyclists.

As a means of locomotion for shearers traveling from one shed to another, the bicycle has almost entirely displaced the horse. The old-fashioned sight of a squadron of shearers galloping with all their trappings, pack-horses, etc into country villages is rarely met with now, but a shearers cycle detachment is no uncommon sight. It is safe to say that fully three fourths of the shearers have adopted the bicycle and discarded the horse. ³

' Diamantina' (Winton): As one of the bicycle brigade of shearers I would ask leave to reply to 'Flinders' remarks in your paper. In the first place I would like to call to his mind the saying of the Latin poet, that a man does not change his nature when he changes his climate, and a shearer does not change his nature when he changes from a horse to a bike, and in principle and generosity the average bike man is no better and no worse than the average man traveling per horse or per boot. As for their (sic) being the class that most impose on their mates in regard to getting rations at sheds, this remark shows 'Flinders' entire ignorance of what he is talking about, as anyone who has had any experience of bike riding knows that the bike rider's aim is to travel as lightly loaded as possible, and all he generally takes at a shed is some bread and brownie and some cooked meat sufficient to last him a day or two at the outside, as the distance he can travel enables him in that time to get to where he can obtain another supply. As to having his sheds in his pocket before he starts, I infer that 'Flinders' means he has got them through that very new idea the post office, which was never heard of or used for that purpose before shearers road (sic) bikes. As to his not spending his money exactly where he earns it, I claim that a man has a perfect right to spend his money where he thinks fit, and if one followed out 'Flinders' ' idea to a logical finality he would never pass the nearest bush pub, I prefer to go to the centres of civilisation to improve my mind and bring myself up to date by seeing the latest inventions of science, and hearing the best speakers, the greatest thinkers, actors, singers, &e. 'Flinders' reminds me of the old fable of the rat who, having had his tail cut off in a trap, tried to persuade all the other rats that every one who wore a tail was a scab or a bastard. I am a bike man and a member of the A.W.U., and I would advise 'Flinders' to get a bike, too, before his mind becomes as narrow as the billabong he lives in, and his brain as muddy as the water he drinks.' ⁴

Highlighting the long distances that shearers traveled by bicycle, Jim Fitzpatrick ⁵ in "The Bicycle and The Bush" described the travels of a group of shearers from Tasmania who between about 1900 and 1915 would cover several thousand miles by bicycle on mainland Australia. Each year once the shearing season was over on the mainland they'd return to Tasmania and shear sheep in their local sheds.

This machine is simply and strongly built, all the joints of the frame being reinforced and strongly pinned, the tubing used being the Shelby patent seamless. The cranks are of spring steel of heavy diamond section, the sprockets are interchangeable, and all the caps and covers are hardened and polished, ensuring a smooth running wheel. American Dunlop roadster tyres and Westwood rims are fitted. It is stated that the machine will carry a man up to 14 stone over any roads in the colony. For traveling, attachments can be fitted for carrying swags either in frame bag or on handle bar. All the tools are complete, with bag and brakes, are supplied, and the firm have made arrangements by which machines can be delivered carriage paid to any station or run in the colony…" ⁶

Once on the road shearers by default of the terrain had to become resourceful with their rubber shod metal machines. One shearer rode a hundred miles with ropes for tyres, "one of the local shearers rode from Clare station to Hay, a distance of a hundred miles, over very rough country, on a Royal Speedwell bicycle, using ropes for tyres. The shearer had no tyres on his bicycle, and could not obtain them where he was, so he decided to splice ropes into the rims." ⁷

A shearer traveling per bicycle …. when the man was preparing to retire, a sheep dog which has killed many snakes in his day, pounced into some bushes and drove out a large brown snake. After giving chase, the reptile dodged the dog and nothing happened until a few hours later, when the shearer was awakened by a cold creepy thing passing over his face. Realising that it was a snake, the man stirred out from the blankets and seized a stick … he saw the snake and in two hits broke it's back. It was a brown snake, measuring 5ft. 6ins. ⁸

On the Werribee riverbank in nineteen hundred and ten a shearer committed suicide, before he jumped into the river to drown himself he scratched an empty epitaph using a lead pencil into the rim of his bicycle. "Departed this life, 27th, 1910. Born in 1871" T. Vaughan, who's shearer's ticket bore the number 494 and was issued by the Victorian Riverina branch also wrote in his memorandum-book : "Departed from this life, 1910. My body will be found sleeping underneath the river." It was Senior-Constable Bowden who "kept a strict watch on the river", and recovered the bicycle riding shearer Vaughan from his river of sleep. ⁹

Wet sheep spells are not a particularly cheerful experience at a big river shed with 60 or 70 men thrown idle and on their own resources in the far bush, and things are not improved in any way if a public house happens to be within two or three miles. The scanty reading brought by a few is soon disposed of, and all sorts of devices are resorted to "knock down the time." Football matches between the shearers and rouse-abouts, bicycle races, tests of skill and strength, mock trials, tin can bands— anything and everything you can think of "thumbs up" and "birds fly. ¹⁰

The motor car meant that shearers and bicycles were only ever going to have a brief union. While the bicycle had become the established mode of shearer transport, as early as 1907 some shearers were seen striking out in motor cars, "A few of the shearers who like to show out in front provide themselves with a motor machine." ¹¹ By the late nineteen twenties the bicycle was no longer the shearers mode of travel. The "motor lorry" had replaced the bike, a 1933 description of shearers arriving at a shed shows how the bicycle had become a relic of a past era, "A TEAM of shearers arrives the night before their work begins. In earlier days they landed at the station in buggies, carts, on horseback, bicycle, or even on foot. When times were booming, four or five came along in a motor car. Money was plentiful, and shearers could afford to buy a car. Nowadays the communal motor lorry is a more common sight. " ¹²

In 1947 a retired shearer, reflecting on his career in the days of the bicycle, laid out the bare truth -- "That seems to be the trouble with the outback — you're either dying of thirst or swimming for your life." ¹³ Dick Hinton 1947.