“Steel Grandpa” Who Won the Toughest Bike Race

The statistics say, only 1 person out of 5,000 can be a centenarian. The oldest Tour de France cycler Henri Paret was 50 years old — back in 1904, he finished the race in 11th place. But there was someone who beat both records: both for longevity and cycling.

This is Gustaf Håkansson aka the Stålfarfar, which translates from Swedish to English as Steel Grandfather. By the way, I must confess I’m not Swedish. I know it’s hard to tell from my spot-on pronunciations, but I have to be honest, if not transparent. Let’s continue.

July 1951, Sweden. The Annual Sverigeloppetcycling competition. By the way, this contest still exists, and the next one takes place in August 2023. Our man Gustaf, an ordinary bus driver from the Swedish town of Helsingborg decided to take part in a cycling contest called Sverigeloppet, which intended a distance from Haparanda to Ystad. Haparanda in the very north of Sweden, very close to the Finnish border — and its residents speak both Swedish and Finnish.

And here’s Ystad in the very south of Sweden. You see it now? The bicycle tour lies throughout the whole country. The distance between these two towns is about 1,010 miles according to Google Maps. Sounds crazy for a bike ride!

But there’s more about the story. Gustaf wasn’t allowed to participate in the contest. He was 66 in 1951, and the maximum age for the participants was 40 years. He was told he was too old to compete in the race and, therefore, his application was declined.

Little did he care about all those formalities and what the organizers said... Instead of accepting the refusal, Gustaf simply started the race shortly after the last ‘official’ participant set off. Formally, he wasn’t among those athletes.

Also, all of them had a shirt with a number tag, which Gustaf didn’t have initially, as he wasn’t allowed to take part in the contest. It wasn’t a big deal for the Steel Grandpa — he wrote himself a big zero on his bib assigning this number tag himself. He probably made it to show everyone he was serious about his intentions to participate — and in order not to stand out, he wore a makeshift uniform.

One more reason why the organizers didn’t quite fancy the idea of Gustaf’s participation was his looks. Thing is, he sported a long white beard which made him look even older than he was. The beard was so long that it almost fully covered his participant number tag. There were 50 other participants, all of them half his age.

Plus, those guys had equipment more adapted for a competition like that. Gustaf, instead, didn’t really have any professional gear — all he had was his roadster with mudguards, headlamp, and, surprisingly, panniers. Gustaf’s bike was quite different from what the other cyclers had.

The average cycling speed of an intermediate cycler is around 12 to 16 miles per hour. Let’s say it’s 15 miles per hour. To cover the distance between Haparanda and Ystad such a cycler would need a whopping 67 hours or almost 3 days, and I’m not counting either sleep or meal time here. But that’s just theory: no one can ride a bike for 3 days in a row without stopping.

It took Gustaf 6 days, 14 hours, and 20 minutes to cover this distance. We don’t know at what speed he pedaled, but we know for sure that not only did he manage to make it, but he even crossed the finish line 24 hours before any other contestant did. While all the other participants had breaks and slept, the Steel Grandpa would continue pedaling for up to three days in a row almost without sleeping.

I guess stamina is not about age, but about determination, huh? However, some people might even say Gustaf cheated. Thing is, all the official racers were forced to sleep — it was one of the basic rules during the competition. There were special checkpoints where the racers would meet at the end of the day to have a break and to sleep. In the morning, fresh and full of energy, they could continue pedaling.

But as the Steel Grandpa wasn’t officially a part of the race, he could easily neglect that rule and avoid those checkpoints, which he did. Initially, there was a gap between Gustaf and the rest of the pack, but the checkpoint trick helped him leave all the other racers behind. So, while the official participants were chilling at the checkpoint, Gustaf only took an hour to rest, and as soon as his tiny break was over, he set off.

Soon after the contest started, the Steel Grandpa’s efforts went public. No one could believe an old and fragile man could be doing all that. Some people were worried whether he would stay alive. Gustaf’s pace was surprisingly good, and people were wondering how long he was going to keep it.

One day passed, two days passed, but Gustaf wasn’t likely to give up. He pedaled all his might as if he didn’t care at all about all the basic needs a human being has. They say he only slept for 5 hours in 3 days. At some point, in Söderhamn, the police tried to convince him to have an actual break and even a medical examination.

As you might have guessed, the medical exam proved Gustaf was in good health, so he continued pedaling. All the rivals were far behind the Steel Grandpa, and it seemed like there was nothing in this world that could prevent him from winning the race. There were only about 800 yards left to the finishing line when something unforeseen happened.

We already know Gustaf didn’t have any professional gear — all he had was his bike. It served him perfectly well but all of a sudden, when there was only half a mile to go, the bike got a flat tire. You might think it was a big problem, but Gustaf was unperturbed. He managed to finish the race even with a flat tire.

It was another trick though: to move on, he dismounted the bike. Just a few yards left. Gustaf could already see the finish. He mounted his bike again to cross the finish line. He was 24 hours ahead of all the other participants. Even though his victory was unofficial, it caused a wide public response.

Gustaf got so famous he was even invited to an audience with king Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden. The fun part of that story is that Gustaf was allegedly most happy not because he won the race and even met the King of Sweden, but because he proved the doctors wrong who believed he was too old to compete in the race.

In reality, the Steel Grandpa covered way more than 1,000 miles. You already know he was from the town of Helsingborg, and the race started in Haparanda. We gotta take a look at the map again. Here’s Helsingborg, and it’s in the south. Haparanda is in the very north. Right, that would have been much more convenient if the race had started and not finished in Ystad.

So, according to Google Maps, he actually rode way more than 1,000 miles — first, he needed to get to the starting point and only then he could take part in the contest. At least it didn’t take him much time to come back home once he finished the race!

This wasn’t his only race. In 1927, when he was 42 he conquered the northern Swedish mountains by bike. He also reportedly rode to Jerusalem back in 1959 when he was in his seventies. He also broke another record being the oldest recording artist at the time — yep, he did record some songs. Also, he appeared in some ads.

One more record here — as you already know, he was a centenarian and lived for 101 years. However, this record was broken by his wife Maria, who lived for 105 years. Today, there’s even a permanent exhibition called Stålfarfar in Johannamuseet, Skurup. Now, who’s too old to compete? You know, I could use some Swedish meatballs right about now...