CYCLING AND MOTOR NOTES

Otago Witness, Issue 2690, 4 October 1905, Page 59

CYCLING AND MOTOR NOTES

' — — Mr F. Anderson, of Dunedin, put up a good performance on his cycle from Oamaru to Dunedin -on Saturday. Leaving Oamaru at 10.45 a.m., he arrived in Duneclin at 3.50 p.m., his time for the 72 miles thus being shr smin, and this despite a puncture at Waifcati, necessitating Anderson riding a ■considerable distance on the rim of his bicycle. Unfortunately, the attempt at record was not officially timed ; but Anderson says he intends to have another go (official) at the existing record before the season closes, and is confident he can do the journey well under five hours. A. Dalgleish, of Oainaru, rode the distance some years ago in shr 4-Omin, and it is understood this is the best time up to Anderson's performance on Saturday. Looking for fresh fields to conquer, Anderson on Sunday proceeded to Burnsrdo and rode up the Look-out Point "short cut"

from the south side, starting from the abattoirs — a feat which has been accomplished by but a few local cyclists. Anderson rod? a machine up the steep gradient geared to 38in, with 7in cranks, and is evidently in fine form at present. A very good performance was put up by a youthful motorist, Mr R. Dunn, one day last week. Riding a 3-h.}j. Rover motor cycle weighing 1501b, Mr Dunn made a non-stop run up High street from Princes street to the Morning-ion tramshede — whicb at once places the hall-mark of high-grado on both motor cycle and driver. A party of three cyclists on the South road on Saturday afternoon discovered a brother cyclist lying on the track near Riccarton in a dazed state, with his face in a very battered condition. Being unable to get the injured man round, they sot off to Mosgiel and secured a doctor, who returned with them. The cyclist by this time had somewhat recovered, having been supplied with some water to haih-e his face, bub was still far from being- thoroughly conscious. The doctor at once advised him to ta,kc the train to Dunedin, where I understand it was found necessary to put several stitches in a cut on his face. The cause of the accident was the breaking of the machine just below the crown head, and ' the detached front wheel of the bicycle was found a considerable distance down the incline where the accident occurred. One of the motor features of the year j 1905 is the large increase in the number of j machines fitted with high-tension magneto ignition. Both systems — namely, the SimmsBosch and the Eisemann — are much in evidence. The Singer machines have from the beginning used low-tension Simms magneto, but they have naturally turned to the more modern system. The N.S.U. show an evident preference for the magneto over the accumulator, and fit magnetos of the Eisemann type, which they themselves build under license. The Roc motor cycles, with one exception, are all fitted with the Eisemann system of magneto ignition. Their lady's model has the Simme magneto in order to save the space taken up by 'the coil. The new four-cylinder F.N. has Simms high-tension magneto, driven direct j off the main shaft. The magneto is placed ' upside down, forward of the engine, and a ! high-tension distributer guides the current jto the four sparking plugs in turn. Among other makes in which magneto ignition is optional may be mentioned the Phoenix, the Minerva, the Viudec Special, the Triumph, and the Ortona. The Singer Company have long had a preference for the system, and show no signs of reverting to accumurators. As regards the method of driving the magneto, the chain appears at present to be mainly used; but the gear drive is more , certain and in several ways better, and no doubt will eventually become the universal system. Although no motors were out on the South road last Sunday week, the roads were in fairly good order. The Main Southr road from Saddle Hill to well beyond Balclutha is one of the best roads in NewZealand, and there is a good 50 miles of hard blue metal surface with hardly a blemish. A very prevalent but erroneous ideais that .a motor cycle troubles its rider with | excessive vibration; but the facfc of the matter is that the engine practically sets up »o vibration, especially if the engine is a two-cylinder one, but the road surface does if it is rough. Anyone doubting this statement only does so through ignorance, and a spin on a two-cylindered motor "on the smooth South road would dispel the prejudice. The thrilling sensation of spinning along a good road on a fast motor car ov " motor cycle can hardly be equalled, and very seldom fails to make converts to tha potrol-driven system of propulsion. Messrs Gordon, Boot, Bell (2), an<? Cardale were out on the South road for S spin on Saturday. Mr James Grey's 10-h.p. Wolsele? was also out, and was going well, with Mi Payne at the wheel. Mr C. J. Fox and Dr Williams wenl out to Henley on Sunday in the 6^-h.p. Humberette. It was a beautifully warn: day, and these two seemed to be enjoying the spin to the full. Messrs Hayvvard and Stedman weni to Titri in the former's 5-h.p. Oldsmobile. The genial "Sam" was getting splendid going out of the little car, taking almost everything on his top gear. Mr James Mills's new car — a 20-b.p Oldsmobile — was also out at Henley. Thlc car has two opposed horizontal engines, which give a beautiful drive — almost eqiia; to steam in gentleness. The weight of the car is about 2+cwt. One chain only is used A leather apron protects the under geai from mud and dust. The apron is hanging | rather low, only a few inches from th* ground. Only two speeds are fitted and th/i car can go over Saddle Hill going south ! on her top epeed. which says something £o» I her yower. It can also touch 40 miles an hour on the fiat. The party on Sunday took 55 minutes from Dunedin to Henley. Messrs Gordon. W-etherilt, Boot. A. Stone, D. Strang, Sievwright, Bell <2», Price, and Hutton, all mounted on motor cycles, went to Henley on Sunday. T#a cars and two motor cycles had punctur* I troubles. One motor cyclist found feb* | bottom bracket of his cycle coming to pieocs,. so put the parts in his pocket and used an old broomhandle through the bottom braclct-t aperture for foot-rests. JV- Amos M'Ke°;g is now homo again from his trip to Australia, and ie very much improved in health as a result of liis lour round. 1 am soriy to have to repor*- the illnoss of one of our besi and most popular motor cyclists. Mr T. Fra?er, who has been laid up with a severe attack of bronchitis. I am happy to slate, however, that he is now much improved, but will probably have to go for a holiday before resuming: business. Mr Fraser will probably not do any motoring for some weeks, and will be greatly mised by more than his motoring companions on the South road. Messrs Mantel and Martinelli. on motor cycles, passed Henley on Sundaygoing south. ~ — Two 50-mile amateur cycle races weve decided in London 'ast month — Leon Meredith winning at Paddington the race for tlia Alexander Clark Shield in lhr 57min ; while at Home Hill the Southern Counties Championsnip was won by W. J. Pett (Putney A.U.), who had in four previous years finished second^ and who now covoied the distance in lhr*4Bimn 12 i-ssec. .Last month a very interesting race was ridden on- the Pare dcs Prince-, track Paris the conditions being one hour, moto"' paced, and the competitor* being such «oodi men as Eugene Bruni. Ccesar "Simer "anr'i Loysan (France). Nat Butler (America) a»u Gougoltz (Switzerland). The contest,- «- s •

ill th-e riders in turn, but victory in tho )nd -declaring in favour of the Swiss wheel--'inan,- who travelled 64- kilometres 816 metres in the hour. ■ Bobbie Walthour got badly beaten in - % 100-kilometre race at Dresden, finishing -only fourth behind Paul Darragon, Roseiilocher. and Contenet. The winner's time was lhr 25min 49 2-ssec. At Antwerp, iGruignard, the present holder of the hour xe'cord, showed fine form in a series of races at 10, 20. and 30 kilometres, winning all - three in the respective times of 7min 21 2-ssec, 13min 49 4-ssec, and 20min 24 3-ssec. Tommy Hall was engaged at Hanover to attempt to break all German records from 1 kilometre to 100, and, not•■withstanding three breakdowns by his pacing - machine, he broke several figures, though not that for the full distance. At Treptow, a suburb of Berlin,. Peter Gunther (of Cologne) won a 50-kilometre race in 42min ■19 l-sssc; while at Magdeburg the Dutch lider Piet Dickentmann put in a good performance by. defeating Rob! .and -Bruno iDemke. in a 100-kilometre race, won in lhr " 24min 30-4-ssec. r The winners of the. Goulburn to Syd- , ney Road Race now are : — 1902. L. Little- " child, time 7hr 52min; 1903, 0. H. Brook, iThr 28inin - r 1904, J. C. Robinson, 7hr 55min ; 1905, M. Robinson, 6hr 41min oOsec. •_\ # Ifc is gathered from English papers ; Jfchat .Poulaih. the French crack, wHo recently - -,won the world's sprint championship, may ' make a trip to Australia during next "= season. With Poulain, Rutt, Lawson, and - (Form in Australia some exciting racing "'JBhould be "witnessed. — -~ — The chief events at this year's Coolbardie (W.A.) carnival are the Westrai . iWheel Race of £300 and the Bavlev Mile ' "of £100. * . ' — — M. Robinson, the winner of the Goulburn to Sydney Road Race, established a .very fine performance, he practically leading all the way, and completing the disJtance in 6hr 44min SOsee, 6min longer than "'the time taken by the Now Zealander -J- Arnst, who put "up the fastest _ time for the race. Robinson is a sturdily .■built youth, 21 years of age. He rode a cycle, fitted with ? Dunlop tyres, 6£ cranks and 84 gear. His only mishap was ! a fall whilst descending Razorback mqun- , "tain, which is in a very loose condition. ■•^Robinson is a brother of last year's .winner. The South Canterbury Caledonian • Society is offering £70 'as prizes for its .jWheel Race to be run at Timaru at its --'New Year meeting. Hawley, the- winner of .this year's iWarrnambool to Melbourne Road-Race, just - previously- annexed Ahe. twenty-five mile . road championship of Australasia in 72min .- 68sec. J. Arnst was third and Mehrtens ,- fourth. R. 'Arnst was amongst the '"also* ' started." The treatment of cycle thieves in the law. courts was the subject of some .com1 ment at the recent Christchurch ."good breads" .meeting, several speakers urging the for severe punishment of offenders. - .One went into N statistics, and stated that the year ending March 31 no fewer igfchan 219 bicycles were stolen in Chr'ist-•.chur-eh, and 197 were recovered by the .police, 21 ~of these being unclaimed. He j.complrmented the policeN on their ' very .praiseworthy efforts, and expressed .his symiipathy with them in their, failure to obtain '•greater encouragement from the courts, j. — r^- " May 1' ride a bicycle ?" the fciuesttion, diffidently put by nervous patients their --physicians, is answered far more - "frequently in the affirmative, than ' used to ,Jb? the case. Before the -boom, of 1896 it \used to be exceptional to -find a doctor who _#iad any practical experience of bicycling,' r'except" such as he had acquired when called ■in for the surgical' treatment "of broken ; 'heads. Now, however/ the younger'genexa- '. JEion of; doctors are found to have graduated '''in the art of bicycling long before they. _ 'have acquired the right- to minister to the ailments of their ' fellow-citizens, and it "Ws-become almost universal for the country .practitioner to regard his bicycle as his' "normal 'means of locomation, and his par--•riage'or trap serves only -for state visits "and bad weather. — — Repairers are everywhere (says z a Home paper) reaping a -harvest -'jow.ing to -the breakdowns of the . .gftrretanade ' machines at rubbish S>rice% and very unsatisfactory jobs j .they find them. -Tyre . patchings and '_ 'mendings _in such machines are worst of ;-*ll. £k> high is the price of good rubber " .that the - compound used for low grade -,-*yres to match the £3 19s lid or £4 9s 9d 'retail machines can only be described as. "trash." Little wonder that some of the newcomers (at a low estimate 100,000 to new cyclists have iecn added to the roll this year) do' riot find cycling under such conditions all that fancy painted it. In view of^Demon's recent notes' on the subject of . single cylindex*s versus twin cylinders the following; , taken from" a - ifiome-> paper should prove of interest — " AVcbrrespondent raises the. question of _ the _ advisability of, preferring a one-cylinder ear to another with two cylinders. He is ""assured that the simplicity of the single 'cylinder will compensate for its less even [■running and its probable extra noise. He jar afraid of the complication which the ad"ditional cylinder will introduce into the ignition system. In arguing in this way - 'his advisers are losing sight of a very imiportant point which renders a two-cylinder engine even more simple to manage on the road than a single cylinder. The major portion of troubles on the road arises from the ignition. Now, if a single cylinder - engine stops, it may be due to absolutely anything .in the whole gamut of -motor troubles, and the driver has to begin to try everything. It may be the plug, it -may be any part of the wiring, it may be the battery or the coil, or the commutator, or it may be the carburetter or the valves ; , Jbut' if a two-cylinder engine stops, only if both cylinders refuse to fire, an unusual - circumstance, have all these things to be considered. If one .cylinder will fire, it shows at once that battery, coil, wiring, .and fuel supply, so far as that cylinder is -"concerned, are all right; and thus at once 'is eliminated a great deal of worry. It | only remains to trace home the defect that I lis afflicting the other cylinder. It is quite true that one rarely finds both cylinders Jn a two-cylinder motor, or all the cylinders in any multi-cylinder engine, giving full jpower.- Nevertheless, two cylinders are Jbetter than one, and three than two, and four than three; while six are better than four," though some considerable skill is required to manage them. But, at anyrate, lon the ground of facility in^discovering 'defects, two cylinders are preferable to "one." — i-The famous American motor car driver Barney Oldfield met with a serious accident last August in the course of the motor races at Detroit. In passing Oldfield one of the ather competitors seems to have cut in

[ too soon and to have collided with his car, which was overturned, Oldfield being hurled out by the force of the impact. He was soverly cut and bruised, but not dangerously. There has just been formed in Paris a Compagnie Francaise dcs Automobiles do Place, or hackney motor-cars, with a capital of £90,000, for exploiting the public conveyance of passengers in Paris by taxameter automobiles. This company proposes to put in use next winter 250 fourseated carriages of 10-h.p., built, by Messrs Eenault Brotheis. Ihe lariff will be 75 centimes for the first 900 metres and 10 contimes for every 300 metres in addition. Never before in the history of motoring has there been so much touring in Europe by prominent Americans as is the ease this year. That this is the fact is not because Americans arc becoming fes patriotic, or are more attached to the older continent than their native land, but because little or no improvement, except in a few isolated instances, is to be noticed in the American roads. The Irascible Major : ''I can promise you some excellent shooting up at my place." The- Peppery Colonel : "Ah, partridge — thanks !" The Major : " Gad, no ! Motists, by gad, sir !" At tho half-yearly meeting of the Great Western Railway Company, Mr Alfred Baldwin, the chairman, mentioned that on the Thursday before the Henley .Regatta 400 motor ears were housed in and about Henley. In previous years their occupants would have- been regarded as "first-class traffic," for the benefit of the shareholders; now people prefer the motor car with 'it 3 radial view of i?be country in. preference to the circumscribed outlook of the darriage window. But; the loss of first-class traffic is not 1 the only effect of the automobile on the railway revenue, for commercial travellers are beginning to realise that the motor car, with its ability to journey when required and so save the exasperating waits at the stations, is a great aconomiser of time; and "time is money" to the 'kn' ht of tho road. — —July proved a very active month as regards the importation of foreign motor eM-s into England, the imports being the second 'argesfc on record. To give the figures, 675 cars reached that country in July, their value being returned at £277,738, which, added, to £71,968 of parts, gives an aggregate of £349,701 for the month, as compared with only 278,128 in July of last year. During the first seven months of the year the imports of automobiles into England have attained a value of over two millions sterling — £2,114,630, to give the exact figures — representing over 3850 cars. As regards the exports of British motor cars, these show a slight increase. The number shipped in July was 59, of a value- of £23,295. To this has to be added- £8314 of parts, giving a total of £31,609, as against £21,535 in July, 1904. For the- first seven months of the year British exports of motor ears have attained a value of £195,779. —^Ixr general, for districts with good roads and moderate gradients (says the English Field) a foreign-mad© car' will give' as much, and oftentimes more 'all-round satisfaction than a British-built vehicle. But for indifferent routes and 1 heavy gradients it is advisable to makei a strong point of solidity of construction, and one cannot go to a feeder man than a British' engineer when durability is the j^reat desideratum. Speed and appearance may have to be sacrificed, but the strength will l.c there. The buyer, however, should not attach too much importance to this matter, for a relatively light ear, well designed and sprung, will^ often prove more durable than a clumsy and ponderous affair, in which the engine always handicapped by the" immense^ dead weight carried. Locality and roads ' m.ust settle to a great extent how -much the question of extra strength should be considered. — r The Victorian Motor Cycle Club held a reliability contest on the Mount Alexander road on the 16th of September, the course being from Essendon to Gisborne and return, a distance of nearly sixty miles. Thei run was successfully carried out, and the following cam© through the test satisfactorily :— Messrs T. Corlett (3^-h.p. Griffon), | A. G. Hutoheson (3^-h.p. Griffon), C. S. Cox (3i-h.p. Griffon), J. M'Kenzie (3i-h.p. Griffon), S. Dalrnr.pLe (6-h.p. twin-cylinder Griffon), E. C.- Joshua (6-h.p. twin-cylinder -Griffon), H. Jenkins (3£-h.p. Griffon), R. Riddell (3£-h.p. Griffon). W. H. Cuddon ; (3£-h.p. Griffon), B. Gibson (2-^-h.p. Griffon). E. Gehrs (3-h.p. Beauchamp), F. Bennett (2^-h.p. Ranchet), S. Darby (2^-h.p. Ran- i chert), D. M'Arthur (2 : h.p. Motor-Sacoch). A. minimum time limit of 3hrs was imposed, while all J were to finish within 3£ hours to score. The pace, therefore, was very moderate; and, m fact, the motor J cyclists- had to 'while away the time in Gisborne, so as not to finish within the specified time. Twenty miles an hour for some of the machines- was merely a walking pace. - Four auiomobili^s, Messrs F. K. Rand, H. E. Bagot, H. Proctor, and H. B. James, have just completed an interesting trip from Melbourne- to Sydney. The cars used were a 12-h.p. De Dion and a 12-16-h.p. Decauville, and the trip was tindertaken. at the instigation of the prorcoters of the overland motor contest, ■yt'hich will take place in November. A series of phonographs of incidents by ihe way show that tho trip was more than usually exciting. Heavy rain had fallen j during the day over tho south-eastern pails of the continent, and as a result the track was under water for 40 arid 50 yards ;>t a stretch. When the- party reached B^rke's Creek a shock was in store for them, as i* was 60ft wide and now and then trees and large trunks of cut cimber could be seen carried along by the- rushing stream. After a lot of trouble, ihe stream, which was aboiii 3ft deep in places, was crossed in a- zicrzag line, as had the vehicles gone straight across they would assuredly iiave disappeared almost out of view. Mi- Rand, who made the first attempt to cro^s, sti-rk 1 in midstream, the commutator and half rhe ergin-e being all the time- under water. V-ith the aid of a, long rope and four-men power, the car was drawn out of the water. The D© Dion car. was got across by the same means. BenalLt, 56£ miles, was reached at sunset that evening, the party being thoroughly worn out. The next stage of the journey included the "gluepots," Glenrowan, so named owing to the practically impassable miles of deep, soft, black clay holes, which stretch from one side of the track to the other. Residents reported that the pathways were the worst ever experienced, owing to the heavy rams. A terrible time was experienced by the motorists in crossing this stretch, the bodies of the cars almost resting in the mud when the cars dropped, into the deep holes met I

naw and again along the course. Wlwn in is considered that it took seven men and one horse to dislodge each car. the nature of the road may be imagined. Slow progress wa~ Ihe-n made tc Albury. which was reached about 11 p.m. Once over the border into Now South Wales better progress was made, and Sydney eventually reached. The whole trip of 572 miles was covered in 5., daj=;. -which made the run a meritorious one. considering tho road conditions.