Cycling.

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 98, 17 May 1902, Page 6

Cycling.

It is wonderful what an exaggerated opinion some people have of speed on the road. During the hearing of the recent action, Bloomfield v. the Dunlop

Tyre Company, a well-known Melbourne horse-trainer swore that the defendant company's oar covered eighty yards in one second. As this reckoning gives a speed of over one hundred and sixtythioe miles an hour, it can be seen how ea&y it is for even a person used to handling a stop-watch to incorrectiv estimate the speed of a motor car whilst ti availing on the road. Major-General Hutton, Commandant of the Commonwealth Forces, was recently approached by the secretary of the New South Wales League in reference to the formation of a New South Wales Cycle Military Corps He said lie was not in favour of organising a distinct cyclists' regiment, but he thought a section of cyclists attached to each partially-paid regiment allotted to the field forces would be a real adjunct. A fcinall number of cyclists attached to a mounted corps were especially valuable as they could do all the orderly duty and maintain communication along roads. Another marvellous oerformance has been accomplished in France by the crack motor tricychst, Osfont, who covered on the road, by the aid of his De Dion tricycle, thirty-one miles four three minutes thirteen seconds. This is at the rate of fifty-six miles an hour. An up-to-date motor bicycle is about the cheapest mode of locomotion in the world. A gallon of pertol, which costs about two shillings, will run a motor cycle anything from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles. In other words, under the most favourable circumstances, it only costs' about a penny to cover six miles. Lesna, the crack French long-distance road ndeir, who visited Australia on a racing trip some five years ago, has written to the New South Wales League srtating thait he intends paying another visit about October next. Lesna will brin^ with him from France some of the latest motor pacing machine®, which he will dispose of at the completion of a five months' racing trip through the States. Last year Lesna won the great European Road Race from Paris to Berlin, beating the best Continental road riders, and subsequently rode a great race in the Paris-Brest race, over a distance of some seven hundred miles. The French Chamber of Deputies recently decided to replace the costly French service of mail trams by motor car postal vans. W T . Martin, on the 26th ult., with the assistance of E. Beauchamp's motor bicycle /fitted with a wind shield) sought to establish a new world's record foi twenty-five miles on the road. A. B. McDonnell (America) held the world's record — fifty-one minutes fifty-five seconds, in 1896. The course selected b\ Martin was from Garvoc to within a mile of Camperdown (Victoria), and, favoured by a good wind, and fast motor pacing, Martin put up a. marvellous ride, and a new world's record bv covering the twenty-five miles' in fifty-one minutes ten seconds, some forty-five seconds better than the previous figures. Martin's fine lecord was accomplished on Dunlop tyres He left, last week for a racing trip through Europe.