The family spent a lot of time bushwalking, fishing and camping and Harmsen’s favourite activity has always been cycling, with the now 27-year-old having explored various parts of the world on two wheels.

He says as he’s gotten older, his desire for bigger, bolder adventures has also grown.

Which is how he ended up as event director of Tasmania’s gruelling Winter Challenge multi-sport event – which will be held at Orford on August 10 – having resurrected the event last year following a four-year hiatus after the pandemic.

Harmsen’s unquenchable thirst for adventure is also the reason he recently ran the Overland Track with a friend in a single day, covering 78km in 14 hours in the depths of winter, to mark his 10,000th day of being alive.

It’s also why he cycles 500km in a single day once a year – journeying across various parts of Tasmania with a small group of mates – to raise money and awareness for mental health and suicide prevention.

Harmsen has also signed himself up to run 162km across 7700m of elevation in November, in Victoria’s Grampians National Park, for the Grampians Peaks Trail 100 Miler ultra-marathon.

Harmsen’s love of being in nature has also shaped his choice of career, with the former University of Tasmania valedictorian completing bachelor degrees in both business and economics in 2021, followed by a First Class Honours year specialising in environmental economics and marine science.

Now an environmental economist, Harmsen works in a string of part-time roles which perfectly combine his passion for adventure and nature.

He spends three days a week working for Next Wave Seaweed, an organisation which helps businesses leverage the power of seaweed to restore marine environments, sequester carbon, use biomass grown for seaweed-based products like food, livestock feed, fertiliser and bioplastics, and assist aquaculture companies to reduce their environmental impact.

He also spends one day a week co-ordinating City of Hobart’s Youth Climate Action Fund, an initiative that supports local youth-led groups to convert their climate ideas into real projects through grants and mentorship.

Harmsen has also been spending one day a week working for Episteme Consulting, most recently preparing a report for the Mountain Bike Network – Tasmania, on the economic impact of mountain biking in the state.

Harmsen spent about five years working casually as a mountain bike guide at Derby – in Tasmania’s North East – while at university, and he still works as a guide a couple of times a year because “it’s such a bloody awesome job”. He also spent a season in Whistler, Canada after he finished uni, working as a mountain bike coach.

Among all of these gigs, Harmsen – a former Taroona High School and Hobart College student who now lives in a share house in West Hobart – still finds time to exercise and also organise the Winter Challenge, which he is excitedly reinvigorating.

The long-running event was put on hold by the previous event director, Wayne Chapman, due to the Covid pandemic, but that hiatus stretched into a four-year break. Harmsen had always been an enthusiastic Winter Challenge participant and approached Chapman to resurrect the event, with 176 competitors from Tasmania and interstate taking part in the revamped 2024 challenge.

Harmsen hopes to attract 200 competitors this year in the challenge which consists of a 10km kayak, a 28km road bike, a 15km mountain bike and a 10km trail run, starting and finishing at Orford, on August 10. There are categories for juniors, open and masters, and within those categories, participants can compete as an individual, a pair, or a team of three or four.

The majority of competitors travel from Hobart and other parts of Tasmania, although Harmsen has teams from Victoria and NSW who have already signed up for this year’s event.

“I grew up watching my dad (Pete Harmsen) compete in multi-sport events in Tasmania like the Freycinet Challenge and the Winter Challenge,’’ Harmsen says.

“I watched him compete in the Winter Challenge when I was six or seven years old – I was probably even younger, but I was too small to remember. And I competed for the first time when I was about 14 – I did the mountain bike back then, the first couple of times, and then I did the mountain bike and the road bike a couple of times. I always just loved it, it was such a fantastic mid-winter pick-me-up that my friends and I loved competing in, so we were all quite sad when it didn’t make a return after Covid.’’

So after he finished his university studies he set about bringing the much-loved challenge back to life, giving it a fresh face while also honouring the heritage of the event.

He hopes to increasingly make the event “more accessible and more inclusive” and ultimately “inspire the next generation of multi-sport competitors”.

And in a fun twist, Harmsen will also incorporate the Australian Egg and Spoon Racing National Championships as part of the Winter Challenge festivities this year – enabling participation from people of all ages and abilities who might want to get involved but don’t have the skills or equipment to tackle a gruelling multi-sport challenge – with the hope of raising funds for the community and eventually setting a Guinness World Record.

It was during a week-long Trailblazers summit in Canberra earlier this year, which Harmsen was chosen for as part of an ABC Heywire initiative supporting young regional changemakers, that he came up with the idea for the family-friendly egg and spoon race.

“We had presentations for last year’s Winter Challenge at the Orford Bowls Club and the atmosphere there was just phenomenal, it was so fun,’’ Harmsen recalls.

“And it got me thinking that I’d love to get more people involved.’’

He was mindful that not everyone could afford to spend thousands of dollars on bikes and kayaks to take part in a multi-sport event, and he was also mindful that many Tasmanians suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) during winter, so wanted something fun that could easily enliven a chilly August day.

“I started brainstorming ways to get more people involved who might not otherwise compete,’’ he says.

“And I landed on the idea of an egg and spoon race … it’s novelty-style event and it’s something anyone can do, no matter what their athleticism.’’

By the end of his week in Canberra – where he gave a speech at Parliament House and also met Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – Harmsen had discussed his idea with the Australian Institute of Sport and had gained permission from the Australian Sports Commission to give his event status as the official national egg and spoon championship.

There will be a family/team relay race and an individual 200m race, and entry is $10 per person or $20 per team, with proceeds used to buy a new trailer and surf rescue boards for the Raspins Beach Surf Life Saving Club nippers.

He’s hoping he can grow the event in coming years, attracting participants from surrounding towns like Triabunna and Sorell. And eventually – 2028 is his aim – have a crack at breaking the world record for the largest ever egg and spoon race, with the record currently held by Mexico, where 2039 people competed in October 2024.

Harmsen’s other upcoming Tasmanian event is the Riding With Purpose Tasmania SPEAK UP Stay ChatTY 500 bike ride, which helps raise funds and awareness about the importance of positive mental health.

Harmsen didn’t establish the December event – it was founded by Tasmanian teacher and former road racer Steve Aitken in 2008 – but he became involved four years ago and has taken part every year since.

Held within a couple of days of the summer solstice – the longest day of the year – the event brings together a small but enthusiastic group of riders who aim to ride 500km across Tasmania in a single day.

The route changes each year – for this year’s December 20 event, a bus will transport riders and their bikes from Hobart to Stanley, in Tasmania’s North-West, where they will stay the night, before they embark on a ride in the early hours of the morning, riding from Stanley, along the West Coast and into the Central Highlands and onto Hobart, with the aim to arrive at Mawson’s Pavilion before midnight.

It might seem like an impossible undertaking for most mere mortals, but Harmsen thrives on this sort of gruelling mental and physical challenge.

“I froth on a good old-fashioned adventure,’’ he says.

“I love riding my bike, I love being outside and challenging myself.’’

Harmsen doesn’t take part in the calendar of shorter annual fun runs and rides held across the state, preferring to focus his attention on whatever larger, more unique and adventure-focused event captures his interest.

Which is how he came to sign up for the 162km Grampians run in November, which he says is likely to be the “longest one I ever do”.

He won’t compete in the Winter Challenge this year – as he’s too busy organising it – but he hopes to compete in the Freycinet Challenge on Tasmania’s East Coast in October as he’s got a tradition to uphold. Between Tim and his dad Pete, they’ve competed in every Freycinet Challenge since the event began 25 years ago.

He credits his parents for instilling in him an early love of the great outdoors.

“If I was inside resting as a child, I’d get in trouble from mum,’’ he explains.

“She’d give me a banana and tell me to go outside and play on my bike with my older brother.

“We did a lot of bushwalking when we were younger and went on a few bike rides – they supported us in pretty much anything we showed interest in. We did a bit of camping and fishing and as I started getting a bit older I started doing a few of my own things … longer, faster, harder adventures.’’These adventures have taken him to some of the most scenic and remote parts of Tasmania and to visually-stunning overseas locations including Utah, Colorado, Alaska, Indonesia, New Zealand, Albania and Morocco. He’s also met plenty of interesting people, including TV personality Hamish Blake, who he was once a mountain bike guide for on the Blue Derby Pods Ride, for three days.

Harmsen was one of four Tasmanians who competed – and placed – in their respective divisions in The Cape to Cape event in Western Australia in 2021, Australia’s largest four-day mountain bike stage race which featured 1200 riders racing across almost 200km of forest, bushland and bike parks with a climb of almost 2500m. Harmsen and fellow Tasmanian Tom Cheesman rode to a second-place finish in the men's pairs event, while Launceston duo Cam Ivory and Izzy Flint won the open mixed pairs.

Hearing about Harmsen’s awe-inspiring antics, I ask him to explain what it is that he loves so much about getting out in the elements and pushing himself to his limits.

“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about (the answer to this question) and I just bloody love it,’’ he says.

“I love the adventure, I love going fast and feeling strong and being with friends – and I really love the exploration element of it as well.’’

“Being on a bike, the world is your oyster, you can go anywhere, you can go to some of the most incredible places on this tiny little thing that weighs just 7kg.’’ •

The Winter Challenge multi-sport event will be held at Orford on Sunday, August 10. Entry is $169 for individuals, $279 for a team of two, and $399 for a team of three or four. Entries close on August 3. The Australian Egg and Spoon Racing National Championships will begin at 3pm at the event village at Orford Recreation Ground. Entry is $10 per person or $20 per team of four. For details visit winterchallengestas.com