Missing pieces: Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame member Steve Fairless doesn't remember what happened on a mountain bike ride through the bush between Shepparton and Mooroopna on May 23, 2022. He awoke two days later in a Shepparton hospital.
Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Famer Steve Fairless says a recent riding incident, after which he woke up in hospital unable to remember the past 48 hours, offers a warning for other athletes.
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Mr Fairless left for a routine ride on his mountain bike through the bush between Shepparton and Mooroopna on the afternoon of Monday, May 23, only to wake up in a hospital bed at Goulburn Valley Health two days later.
“I’m not even sure when I woke up, but I woke up in hospital,” he said.
“I don’t really remember any more than leaving the house and saying, ‘Hey dear. Do you mind if I go for a ride?’
“I don’t really remember anything of the ride. Apart from the fact that I must have got going and somebody, thankfully, has picked me up off the side of the track.”
Mr Fairless was inducted into the Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame for his feats on a bicycle, including representing Australia at the World Junior Cycling Championship in 1980, the open world titles in 1987 and the Seoul Olympics in 1988, where he finished ninth in the 100km time trial.
He maintained his love of competition into the following years as well, finishing runner-up at the Masters World championships in 2014 and winning the 50-to-54 age group in 2015.
Despite his obvious competitive nature, Mr Fairless said his rides through the bush don’t involve any risk-taking and so he doubts a crash caused his accident.
“I’m at an age where I’m beyond taking risks and doing silly stuff,” he said.
“My hands are as clean as. I haven’t put my hands out to save myself.
“I haven’t got any blood on a knee or an elbow or anywhere where I traditionally fall off and open my skin up.
“I don’t know what’s come first. I don’t know if the fall has knocked me out (and) I don’t remember falling off my bike, so I can only presume that something has happened, a medical episode, and that’s made me fall off my bike.”
Class act: Steve Fairless is among the best cyclists to be produced by the Goulburn Valley.
Photo by
Simon Bingham
A formidable character in both skillset and fitness, Mr Fairless said that at times in his career he has routinely ridden more than a 100km a day on the road for training.
He said riding through the bush along the Goulburn River was a common activity for him too, so if an incident like this could happen to him, it could happen to anyone.
“I didn’t see anything like this coming,” he said.
“If you were going out into the middle of Australia you’d have some sort of beacon type retrieval set up with you.
“(But) it’s as simple as being in the bush between Shepparton and Mooroopna.
“Another half an hour and it would have been dark and I would have been there all night shivering in half a bike kit.
“Just make sure you’ve got your bases covered. I realise how close I was to a pretty fair catastrophe.”
Action: Steve Fairless competed at the highest level in cycling before retiring after the Seoul Olympics.
Mr Fairless is undergoing a number of tests to try and establish the cause of his blackout, but is also keen to meet up with the person who discovered him unconscious by a track in the bush and raised the alarm.
“I’ll buy him a bottle of whisky or a bottle of port or something,” he said.
