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Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 9, 11 January 1912, Page 2

THE SIX DAYS' RACE., Something new to this part of the world is the six day's cycling race on the Sydney cricket ground, with euch champions as Ivor Lawson riding in it. At theHime of writing the race is still going on. It was started at 1 o'clock on Monday morning by Mr. Fred Flower*, M.L.C. (Minister for Education), and it will finiah.at 11 o'clock tonight. Wo have had our long-distance runners and walkers, we have had our champion club-swingere, and the men who Break the piano-playing records, but this ie the first time w« have seen a body of cyclists chasing one another wound a track for six days without stopping. Here, however, an explanation i* necessary.* No single man is riding the whole six days without a spell j thai would be humanly jmposfible. They

are riding in teams of two. Lawson's team-mate, for instance, is Mitten. Thera aro six.and-twenty riders all told, but only thirteen are to be seen on the track at a time. , Every now and again one or other of the riders is relieved hy his partner; and this is juet what lends interest to the race. There is no fixed time for riding and relieving, that is purely a matter for the team 'mates. But each paii have a method of their own. Take the case of Lawson and Mitten. Laweon is a sprinter, Mitten is a plodder. It ie Lawson'a business to be there when there is sprinting to be done. But bow do they know when someone will start a sprint? They don't—they merely guess. ( As a rule, there is " something doing" in the early morning, and the chances are you will find Lawson there thenv He generally .starts a sprint, in fact, on his own account, and the others shoot after him like a policeman after a burglar getting away with his booty. That ib part of the game — to play the thief, to 6teal a march on the other fellows. But to the spectators it is not wildly exciting. As likely as not they will not be there when there is something to *cc. These men have been riding for a big prize, and not to please the public. Still, there have been good crowds on the ground. For one thing, it is a novelty, and for another there have been other cycling and athletic events in the afternoons and evenings, the grounds being brilliantly lighted up by electricity at night. They have had a man out there riding a motor cycle at 60 miles an hour round the inside of a eteel globe, and another, a one-legged man, riding a bicycle down 100 steps at an incline of 45 degrees— and these are daredevil, sensational events that the public lik» to ccc.