Cycling.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

Cycling.

[By Dagonet.] Notwithstanding the bad roads in China missionaries find good use for bicycles ; in fact it aids them in no slight degree to obtain converts to th" 1 faith. One may readily understand this (says Philibuster in the Australasian) when the attraction caused by the apearanco of a bicycle in the streets and bvwaya of the towns of

the empire is taken into consideration. The teacher of the Gospel rides out and dismounts at the corner of some suburban road, and no sooner has he done so than ■a crowd surrounds him. He then gives his message to his inquisitive audience, and invites as many as like to come to the mision school. A visitor to Pekin recently 3aw a couple of Chinese girls cycling in native female atire in the streets. • They wore wide trousers and simple tunics descending a little below the hips, and were mounted on diamond-framed bicycles, with the gaudy and characteristic figures of dragons, &c, embellished on the framework of the machines. For some time past the subject of gears and cranks has occupied considerable attention amongst English cyclists, and from what I can learn a great many riders are experimenting in a practical way. The theory of long cranks and high gears was first brought prominently under notice in England by Otto Blathy, who maintained that the correct ratio was 60in,gear 7in cranks, 70in gear Bin cranks, 85in gear 9in cranks. This was over two years ago. Makers did not take too warm an interest in the subject, possibly because long cranks meant an alteration in the build of the machine to enable the pedals to clear the ground, gradually, however, from time to time, experiments have been made, and the general results seem to point favourably to 73 gear with 7£in cranks. Of course the height and build of a rider must alAvays be taken into consideration, as a man with short legs cannot obtain much comfort when using long cranks. Long cranks and low gears are unsatisfactory, as the rider will very soon discover. This crank and gear question cannot by any means be considered as settled— mores the pity— because within it, without a doubt, lies the secret of the minimum of exertion witk maximum speed. Each unit of the millions of -cyclists in the world to-day would willingly pay his quota for a settlement-