CYCLING NOTES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXXXII, Issue 10511, 23 November 1894, Page 7

CYCLING NOTES.

[BT BOVEE IN “ CANTERBURY TIMES’.! The entries for the Austral Wheel Race numbered 118, which ia the largest number ever received, and represents a total, of entry and acceptance fees o“ about .-2220. Last year the entries were ninety-five. The latest idea in the O.d Country is cycle frames of bamloo. Over 130,000 bicycles are manufactured in Great Britain yearly. There is a talk of a new Csau Prise League in America with a backing of £25,000. Ic is stated that Zimmerman and W tTeeiajr, after finishing their continental engage ment, will visit Australia. f The terrific strain upon toe mdia-runbe. market during the last ten or fifteen years is telling its tale, and it is predicted that ere long the demand will greatly exceed the supply. Should this prove the case it ie expected that a new substance, known as bolaan, which grows in large quantities in the forests of Surinam, will lake an excellent substitute for India-rnonor. According to Z mraerman, “Not one cyclist in & thousand pedais properly; rne pressure of the foot, instead or being relaxed at the bottom of the stroke, is continued nearly the whole of the circuit of the pedal, and consequently the result obtained is quite out of proportion with the exertion expended.” It ia to his correct style of pedalling he ascribes his phenomenal success. A Parisian doctor has recently oeen seeking the opinion, through the medium of a medical p«.par, of bio confreres as to ■whether cycling was beneficial or injurious to ladies. Forty-eight replies are stated to have been received, and of these thirty-six were in favour of the exercise if practised in moderation, three recommended it under certain conditions, while nine were totally opposed to cycling by women. The London police, having received strict orders from Sir E. Bradford to stop all road races, made elaborate preparations 1 to prevent the North Road tenth annual twenty-four hours’ road race. The start was fixed for 11 p.m. from Peterborough, but riders coming in from Worth Road brought tales of armies of policemen camped by the roadside, preparing to make a night of it, with mugs of ale and blankets for themselves, and, ropes and scattered tin tacks for their prey (the cyclists) ; so at the last moment the route was changed, and the twenty-nine competitors rode otE'in an opposite direction; and the police were bluffed.- The race was won by C. C. Fontaine, who rode 372 miles in twenty-fonr hours; E- Backky was second (356 miles},, and P. T. Bidlcvte, on a tricycle, put up the wonderful record of 853$ miles. This will probably be the lost of the North Road Club’s contests, for road racing seems to be doomed. Some time back (writes C. H. Larrettein the Athletic News ) I asked if some scientific reader would kindly let me know the increase in the pressure of air in a pneumatic tyre earned by a specified rise ia temperature. A gentleman from Chorlton-on-Medlock, who doesn’t wish bis name published, sends on a very few interesting and lucid particulars, which tell us that air expands 1-273 of its bulk for each degree that it rises in temperature. Thus supposing, we will say, that a tyre ia pumped up to 301 b to the inch, about, the usual pressure, this, with the ordinary atmospheric pressure of 151 b to the inch, will bring it up to 451 b. Raise the temperature , from 60deg to 90deg—you can easily do so by letting your machine stand where the sun cornea down on it with full force—and the pressure is increased about 31b to the inch, or an increase of about 1-15. This is not as great as I, for one, imagined would be the case, but of course on bard pumped tyres, the increase would be proportionately greater. Mr W. H. Holding writes mo to the same effect, but he appears to have overlooked iu his calculations the normal atmospheric pressure. .

LADY EIDEES .OF FEAWOJS. (Pan's correspond.-at of Cycling.) The good Parisian society has really taken to cycling, ladies as-well as gentlemen, and slowly, but surely, the pastime has become quite a fashionable ope in Paris. Evan Mdme. Casimir-Pecier, wife of the new President o£ the Kepublie, used to tide ©very morning hi the Bois de Boulogne, before her husband was elevated to the highest dignity in France. Since then she has given up riding in public, but there is every season to believe aha still cycles in the magnificent country park where M. and Mdmo Perier are now casting. But to give the names of all the ladies in the fashionable society who are cyclists would fill up a column of this paper. Of course it was not without much aeeitalion that the rational dress was tdopted. At first a skirt was used over ihe knickers, but it was very amusing to lee the skirt grow shorter and shorter antil it was entirely done away with, and jhe present dress became almost accepted. £ say almost, because of course, they are *nd always will be, some “purists/' es they are termed here, who will not hear of :his dress, which they consider too masculine for ladle?.

Then, again, it must be admitted that jyoling for ladies is spreading out extenlively over here, and has bean taken up by ill sorts and conditions of people. Thera in i certain class of lady riders in Paris of whom itia sufficient to say that oae would lot like bis sister or Lis wife to be mixed ip with them. Of course this class of feminine cyclists tork up rational dress without t moment’s hesitation, and aftarwards soma appeared in such eccentric costumes that I nuat admit they ought to be forbidden in i public thoroughfare. I have. seen lome riding in short knickers, such is men wear, with a woollen sweater md a cricket cap; iu fact, it would bo lifficult tp say where their costume differs Torn that of a man 1 (We have experienced she same difficulty cf identification in England.— Ed). But people have uo trouble in distinguishing a respectable lady ;ider from one. of these “scorchers;” the •ational drees woru by the first-named

being generally neat and simple. I should say it is similar to those I have seen worn by some English ladies, except that no gaiters ate used, and that the jacket ia generally shorter, only cOmiug down to the wrist. In short, the really rational dress has caught on iu Ps»ric, and I believe it has come to stay.