Cycling & Motor News.

Free Lance, Volume XIII, Issue 671, 10 May 1913, Page 25

Cycling & Motor News.

HP HE principal cycling event at their next Olympic Gaines, to be held in Germany in 1916, will be a ternational Road Race, which was won . 150-miles race around Berlin. Consider-. • ing .the great interest aroused, over the -event held around Lake Malar " Sweden, • last year, the next Olympic Road Race will provide a great contest of world-wide interest. Neither Australia nor • New Zealand was represented in the last International Road Race, which wos won by G.' R. Lewis, the sole South African representative. ■ A non-stop motor oifght-and-day trip •of 1276 miles in 67 hours is being organised by the Chicago- : Automobile Club. "The trip runs from Chicago to Boston. ."There will be a change of drivers and ■ observers morning and evening, the relief crews and - officials following the ■afoute in a special train. The rules will require motors to be kept run-run" - con■tinuously even when taking on fuel and -•water.' ' ;. r Prince Leopold of Battenberg, cousin •of our Prince George on H.M.S. New Zealand, recently ascended for a flight *on- a Bristol aeroplane at Madrid. _ The f -'lit lasted 20 minutes, and an- altitude , of 3500 ft was reached. This: is the .first instance on record of an English prince making a flight in an aeroplane. , \ A man comes forward with the statement that speed kills smile. Anyone .! whose . occupation is connected with speed—people who travel :n speedy vehir -eles. motor omnibus drivers, motorists, .taxicab drivers, electric tram drivers— all lose their "smiling sense" in time. ..'Smiling, our friend says, is incompatible with speed. Rapid motion Sets •tn&< fee-. s nal muscles rigid. Rapid motion, is. not unpleasant, of course. : but the ' enjoyment of speed is a pleasurable eiriotion wlrch does not show itself in the face; it is. felt more as a spinal thrill. A baby in a perambulator will smile constantly as the. nurse .gently' wheels it up and •down. A baby in a motor car loses the faculty for smiling as soon as it is aware •of the rapid, motion. , >;■ J. De Rosier, the erstwhile champion motor cyclist of America,- and one of -the finest-racing motorists in the world, Vis dead. De Rosier never properly recovered from, the big smash-up that befel Mm on the Los Angeles track (California) in March last year, when.. he < sustained terrible injuries, which practically kept him in the hospital ever since. ; No otber motor cyclist has ever been .so prominently before the public as Do Rosier. In America he was idolised. Since taking up speed work, he practically Swept the record sheet, putting up times that were almost incredible., At •one time he held every world's record -from 1 to 100 miles, including the hour in "which he covered .83 miles. . In 1911 he visited England, and raced R. C. Collier. England's premier rider, for the world's championship and won. ( At the . time of his' death De Rosier was only 33 years of age. A speed. of 70 miles an hour has been attained on the frozen surface of Lake Ontario (Canada), by a 40-h.p. motor■driveii ice -boat, fitted up with ice runners. The power was • applied bv an aeroplane, propellor, fitted to . the front -of the chassis. Motor ice-boating is now becoming very popular as a winter sport in Some parts of America, and it may not be long, before the great speeds attained on Brooklands track (England) are beaten by ipe boats on the frozen lakes of ■Canada. v A corporal ,in the French Army in North Africa has devised a peculiar motor machine, -particularly adapted for travel over the sand of the Sahara. The machine is a cross between an automobile and a Bleriot type of aeroplane, and has been dubbed the "sleigh of the'desert." • Most queer-looking automobiles are of French make, A well-known example is built on the lines of a submarine, which conceals all but the head of the drivei. The same firm makes a still more realistic "submarine," which is provided with • -a conning'tower, and completely encloses the driver. Then there are cars shaped like artillery shells, with rounded tail pieces in which extra wheels or tyres are neatly stowed, and other shell types with glass skylights. A signal device for use on _ motor cars in traffic has been patented in America, and is so connected with the brake mechanism that the signal is operated when the brake mechanism is manipulated to get the brakes, so that a motor car from the rear will be warned when the car in advance applies its brakes to reduce its speed or stop, thus preventing rear-end collisions. ' :>