WHEEL NOTES BY DEMON.

Otago Witness, Issue 953, 25 April 1889, Page 27

WHEEL NOTES BY DEMON.

1 Fully 5000 persens weite i present at the bicycle races' at Christohurch on Monday. W. j jM'Kay twon the Ten-mile Handicap with'3soyas 'from North and Nankeville, both scratch men,' gaining on his limit and winning easily. He also wen the Five-mile; with 200 yds from North and > Wilson. North won theOßeandThree-milematoh against Nankeville for £lo,a side,, deferred from last week, and consequently- did not compete in jche Five-mile, having won the best two out of three/ North (^{)ys\ beafc Wilson (7Qyds) and M'Kay (l§PydsV in. the New Zealand Grand (Wheel Race* three tiiiles. In consequence of the oiftder 1 track h'eing put. up by Saturday's trotting races the events were run on the grass. The time was therefore slow and not' recorded.

j — —An Invercargill telegram of Saturday says } I " Messrs W. Crow aad J. Stone, Jan., of the I Dunedin Cycling Club, arrived in Inyereargill at ,7 o'clock yesterday, haying come through from Dunedin on'bicyclps sp faraji tl^e rqad was .passable. Dunedin 'wjas le^ afc ,3 p.m. on Thursday, and Balcltitha 1 reached' tpe same nfght. An early etaiftwai ifaa'de from. Balclutha, and. the total distance travelled^orthe day was9omiles, of '■ Which BO were done on wheels andthe remaining 80 on foot. This beats all previous records over the same, ground' By about 16 hours,*" ' ' — — Eight' members of the olub left Dunedin at 6 p.m.! on Thursday, for Oamaru, and reached Palmerston about midnight,' Weir, RicketW, Low, and, Boot; reached, Oamaru; at. 7.30 on, Friday evening. M'Eechnie damaged hi 3 machine and had to take the. traui, and Marshall, Baron ? J^rid ",' Reeves', l'ef^ at 5105 10 a.m. , and rode, easily to Hampden, where Barn, who left .^janr edin af 5.30, overtook. them, and the, party arrived at Oamaru at 6 p.m. The heavy northwester'made the riding slow. The roads were good most'of the way, „ 1 Messrs' ?uratou and Stokes, who are now maMng^'a" cycUhg tour of the world, have . written tft' some SydneT^friends narrating their , esnerjenoes in the' East,' They say in their, I letters that after leaVing Thursday, Island they dropped in at Batavia, Singapore, and here and | there through the' Slrait Settlements. At ; Batavia they say "we rods 130 miles into the country, Haying s'dm.e*' funny experiences with the Javanese, who were astonished at our appearance, and if we stopped anywhere we were I imtnedjmtely surrounded by a jabbering crowd. \ The natives are naked , to the waist, and work I from daylight to 10 or' ll p r m., Sundays and all. The Sing'appre'roads are good % and we had some 'delightful rides for, miles, sometimes through Ibng avenues of trees j with plenty of cocoanuts : and palms. w 'They then went to Rangoon, and i6i it they say ; " This place is . called the city of \ pagodas, and one in" particular, having a gilt dome as high as the Exhibition Building, is re- ' ported to have been partly built before the beginning of the Christian' era ?' On arriving at Calputta they made a trip, mostly by' rail, to Darjeel- ' ing and back, and of the trip they speak as follows :— "We canght the 10 , p.m. train and booked for Darjeeling. Made Siliguri at 8 next .mornings and transferred to the little train that scales the Himalayas to Darjeeling. The distance is SO miles, and in that the rise is '8000 ft. The engine is small, something after the style of those on the Sydney trams, but the gauge of vails is only 2ft, and the way the littfe beggar .'scale's the gradients of lin l? } »nd \in 20 was an eye-opener to us. Qne eprher is called Agony Point and another] Suiqide's Leap, passing round tfre edge 6t ', '£ very steep cliff with a -olesn dropipf hundredd'of feet. The &0. miles iitMlfld^urßtb^4edo^iplish c.'?e .'? FromJ^Wc^ta' 4oißoinbaly, T 4nd o|th|s,thp they say': « s Everything went on, swimmingly until about t^e^ 4avs tpfprja \^e ?e«ch.

Bombay, when Bqrston was taken with a tonoh of cholera, arid!, we^had^o 1 talcs, train fopttyX) miles; This was hardtack,* as ■we had covered 1600 miles; and had an average of 90 miles daily. For the last few/days 6f r buii I rlde'?tlie heat was' intense, and all traffic was snspended; for; three or four hours' int,jfcVemidoUe. visited in turn Benares, C^wnpore^ Luc.knpw, and , Delhi, and 1 finished, up, "with Agra and its beautifarmarblepklades and tombs. ] The Taj in ; particular is r a very, handsome structure aU'ia marble, with walls' and pillars' in many 1 places inlaid with precious stones.' We leave Bombay for Suez; thence to the Pyramids;* and 11 afterwards either to Sicily or the Holy Lund. 3 ?' <^ ! f