Cycling. [By Dagonet.]

Evening Post, Volume LV, Issue 125, 28 May 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

Cycling. [By Dagonet.]

SMOKING IN THE SADDLE. Smoking while cycling is a practice which should be discouraged, as under such conditions smoking is certain to be injurious to the system, and the two things cannot be done properly ; that is to say, one cannot get the full pleasure out of either when the rate of travel is over four miles an hour. The oft-quoted aphorism, ' You cannot do two things at once, ' has in it a measure of truth, though it is possible to be occupied in some dual occupations and do them simultaneously and well— quitejas well, in tact, as if they were done separately. This, however, is not applicable in the present instance. To eujoy smoking when one is cycling the speed must be very slow indeed, but wise riders* prefer to dismount from their machines and enjoy smoking in perfect restfulness and contentment. To keep a chain too long is false economy. It never pays to use it after it has been necessary to remove a link, and even before it has stretched to this extent it will have got seriously out of pitch. A chain which is out of pitch causes extra friction and extra wear. It is far better and safer to have a new one. Bicycles which give the rider electric shocks are the latest. These machines are said to be fitted to carry an electric battery, which serves out nice little eleotrio shocks through the pedals and handles, greatly to the benefit of sufferers from nervous complaints. A spanner, although a most serviceable article in itself, is ■ a very instrument of destruction in the hands of a careless novice. A spanner should be used to occasionally run over the various nuts and see if all is tight and trim : but to be everlastingly tinkering with a bicycle, as some riders aro, is ruin to the nuts, threads, and spanner, and means that when it is absolutely necessary to shift a screw, the wear on the sides of the nut makes this impossible. When adjusting the bearings of a front wheel, be sure you fit the shoulder of the spindle properly into the hole in the forkeud before sorewing the nut up tight. Bioycles are to be taxed in Bombay, according to the latest mail to hand. The local wheelmen are protesting that 'the roads are exoreable, and if there should have been any question of tax the injured cyclist should have been the collector.' New York has increased its cycle force to the number of 6*B. Philadelphia has done the same, though the total number in the latter city is not, of course, so large. An interesting New York item is that the fireengines of that city are fitted with rubber tyres. Twenty months havo passed since the three London cyclists, Messrs. Fraser, Lunn, and Lowe, left the metropolis on their tour round the world, and, according to the latest information respecting their movements, *they have traversed over 15,000 miles', which a little arithmetic will show works out at about 25 miles a day, or" roughly, a mile an hour. The trio have accomplished many remarkable feats, one of the most notable being the ride across China from Upper Burmah, the first time such a feat has ever been performed. They give a bad account of the Celestial Empire as a &eld for cyclists. The roads are shocking, and the cycliets had to carry their machines for hundreds of miles. The bicyclists created an immense sensation among the Celestials, rice bowls being pitched aside in astonishment as they intruded upon the natives enjoying their evening meal.