CYCLE RACING REFORM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXI, Issue 4751, 17 March 1899, Page 2

CYCLE RACING REFORM.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The leading article in your coiumnß yesterday deals with un evil which cyclists throughout the colony would do well to face without delay. There can be no doubt about the fact, that most of the cycling race meetings are now run, if n.QG exactly in the interest of those engaged in the cycle trade, at least with such marked consider* ation for those interests that It comes to the same thing. Why it is a subject for some amusement and much comment that if one or two paid riders elect to attend a meeting in the course of their business, and in the interests only of themselves or their employers mind you, no end of a fuss is made about them. Other visitors (only amateurs) may be coming from distant places, hat ao club bothers about them, sends cabs to carry ! them to the ground, gives them free books of events or pays them any sort of attention. And yet they are spending their own money and paying their own expenses. The handicaps generally show—as a writer in the Weekly Press pointed out the other day-— that at least one rider in the came employ at the scratch man is in h,is heat so that his being paced is assured, But if there happen to be a couple of other riders suspected of being friendly or related to one another and who might possibly help each other in the pacing, they are always divided in their heats so that look where you will you find the clubs pandering to and encouraging the rotten system that prevails. In the attempt to bring about a better state of things your paper, the Timani Herald, Southland and other papers have my hearty sympathy.— I am, etc., Xxion.