WHEEL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1424, 15 June 1899, Page 38

WHEEL.

THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN FOSTER FRASER. Mr John Foster Fraser's cycle tour round the world torms the subject of an article in ' Cassell s Magazine. In its course he tells us that he used up six sets of bicycle tyies. They were,, he writes, not worn out, they became rotten. The inner canvas would get detached from, the rubber, then it would decompose and tear; then the inner tube would press the bare rubber of the outer, make a hump, and then, when I was a hundred miles from anywhere, go. off like the report of a gun. Oh, the annoyance of it all! If all Hie stoppages caused by burst tyres could be lumped together, I wonder how many weeits they would amount to: - In the long, adventurous, and solitary ride I Had across the province of Hupeh, reputed to be trie most anti-foreign place in ail China, my front tyre suddenly took it into it 3 cimimlereiice to develop quite a series of lumps. Wo for four hundred miles I rode with a slackened tyre. For most certainly there would have been an explosion had I inflated it tight. I always regretted having started on so long a trip with different-sized wheels—the fore wheel 30in and the back 28in. If anybody thinks of going for a little cycling tour in west China—not the best ot lands for wheeling, for out of 1500 nfiles it is-necessary to walk at least 1200—1 would advise them to have both wheels the same size. ilie rear wheel always gives out betoie the front one shows signs of wear, and it is a great thing to be able to change the tyres about, and so let them wear evenly. I remember how in central t ersm \ve were received in audience by the /n-i-Wul-tan. The Zil is the elder brother of the Shah, but the reason he is not Shah himself is that his mother was not Royal. The Zil was immensely interested. He o-ot us to ride round and round, making a sort of circus of ourselves. He s a grim humourist in his way. He got me to ride full tilt down the avenue. 1 did. Then he invited me to approach him at top speed, and stop right in front ot him. I did that also. Then he wanted to see how quick I could ride along a narrow, shrub-bound path. I went along at a swing. Suddenly, right m front, I saw an abrupt drop of five or six steps. 1 just back-treadled for all I .was worth and slipped off my bicycle right on the very edge of a catastrophe. 1 burned round. There was His Highness the Zil, doubled up with laughter. He had hoped I would go over and break my machine and neck at the same time. That was Ins idea of fun. If only I could have managed to tumble into the lake, I have no doubt he would have decorated me. An inconvenience, rather than a trouble, when touring in places where most folk would think it madness to go cycling, is iii regard to shoes and clothing. In Persia my clothes got into a most disreputable condition; and, as disreputableness breeds disreputableness, I rarely washed, and shaved only «t long inter.am. -ne puCKv. of my jacket got torn away carrying the bicycle over rocks; then a portion of my knickerbockers gave out, and oiten I had to seek a secluded part of the desert, semidisrobe, and, with a can of repairing solution and a slice of repairing canvas, glue on a patch. It was not elegant, but it was serviceable, and it saved sewing, though for the first day or two alter 1 reached Teheran, the capital, it was always embarrassing to find one’s self in the presence of European ladies. Shoes were a bother. The soles were through, and in places where a villainous toe would peep forth to catch all the prickles a bit ot old tyre bad to be fastened as a protection. * Darning is not in my line. Therefore, the condition of my stockings was enough to put a matronly darner mto convulsions. I got kindly Britishers to give me old socks, and then, cutting off the feet of my stockings, wore a sort of combination garment. KENNEL