CYCLING AND MOTORING NOTES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 8, 20 December 1911, Page 5

CYCLING AND MOTORING NOTES.

Two competitors in the Sydney Six Days’ bicycle race, in F. Keefe (Tasmania) and D. Kirkham (Victoria), are keen on making an effort to recapture the £2O and gold medal offered by the Dunlop Rubber Co. to tiie first Australasian cyclist who betters L. Meredith’s (England) 100 miles out and home unpaced road record of 4 hours 52 minutes 51 4-osec. Keefe made an attempt in California (T.S.A.) some time back and recorded 5 hours 2 minutes—an American record. Ho is convinced that lie can better that performance, and will make an attempt during the midsummer months. D. Kirkham, who is recognised as one of the finest road riders Australia has produced, has also notified the Dunlop Co. of his intention to make an attempt next month on the Western district roads of Victoria.

Several English critics have of late been drawing attention to the overdoing of the torpedo body now so much in vogue amongst motorists, and particularly to the tubby-looking body fitted to many single-seated cars. The chief object is the boxing-in of the passengers, in some instances only the head and neck of the driver being visible. The result has been that many English motorists are complaining of a disagreeable feeling of closeness and stuttiness when motoring in hot weather which was absent from the old type of body. The same objectionable feature is to be seen in many of the bodies now being constructed in this country, the exaggerated style of some of tne English built torpedo bodies being copied out here. Their owners will have cause for dissatisfaction and complaint before the present summer is over Giving to need of ventilation. In this country there is really no need to box oneself in like a sardine. Fresh air is one of the greatest blessings that motoring bestows, but the coachbuilder appears to be doing his best to deprive motorists of its enjoyment. The torpedo body is all right if the sides are kept down and the overhang of the scuttle dash reduced, while provision should be made for adjustable ventilators in the dashboard. Properly designed, the torpedo • body is attractive with its external symmetry and general comliness, but at the same time it’s a poor policy sacrificing health and fresh air for the sake of following a fashion set by a few' extremists.

A. H. Shepherd, the well-known N.S.W. racing cyclist, has announced his intention of making an attempt to improve all the Australian paced track records from a quarter mile up to the hour. The former stands at 20 seconds, held by W. McDonald (Sydney) and the hour at 31 miles 1425 yards, established by W. Martin (Adelaide) as far back as 1901. The lastnamed figures are absurdly out of date, and Shepherd, who is one of tho best riders behind pace in the Commonwealth, should have no difficulty in putting up a substantial increase behind motor cycle pace'. He intends making his attempt early in January on the Sydney cricket ground. The question of the practicability of inventing a cycling aeroplane is one of great interest not only to all cyclists but to the general public, and it is one that is, likely to bo set at rest shortly. Hitherto the chief objection to the feasibility of human airpropulsion has been the fact that the most successful heavier-than-air machines are engined with very powerful motors. Hence it has been . argued that as a cyclist can at most develop but I h.p., a humanly-propelled aeroplane is out of the question. Some remarkable glider flights were recently accomplished by the well known ayiator Orville Wright, he demonstrating that it is possible to remain in the lir for long periods at a time without any motive power whatever, the aifman being supported by the wind even travelling against it, like a kite, Briefly this is what Wright achieved. There was a gale blowing of an estimated velocity of 50 m.h.p. He started from the side of a hill, against the wind, and without any preliminary run. The glider is fitted with side wings and planes and a rear rudder. The inventor is reported to have worked the “warping levers” at a speed of a man rowing a boat. At each gust the glider rose higher and higher until it reached a height of 150 ft., when it floated quite steadily and motioidess for two minutes. Then it moved slowly backwards. Wright then dipped,the machine forward and took a “vol-plane”, coming to a few feet of tho ground. Tilting the plane, ho rose again and then remained motionless at a considerable height for smin llsec, and then descended. He was in the air altogether 9 minutes 45 seconds, and traversed a distance of 700 feet. Such marvellous stability has never been achieved before —except by birds. That the tremendous gale blowing was responsible was obvious; but that it is only a question of experiment before a plane requiring little or no propulsive power will bo able to remain in the air is beyond question. Subsequently Orville Wright performed another series of marvellous gliding flights in a wind of the velocity of 25 m.p.h. only. He made no fewer than forty flights. Taking the air from tho crest of a sand hill, he mounted gradually higher by swinging from side to side, like a soaring bird, until he was seventy feet in the air hovering motionless over the crest of the sand hill, remaining like this for a full minute, in spite of strong contrary gusts. Such flights—entirely without propulsive effort—have become possible by the aid of a stabilising device of which few details are yet available. Briefly, it consists of a vertical plane, feet in length and 12 inches wide, which is pushed out or drawn in in front of the glider, its full extent being six feet. The Wright Brothers—Wilbur and Orville Wright—have made, and ire still making, history in connection with aeroplaning. Their gliding flights in America in 1900 were the preliminary to flights with petrol inotorpropollcd aeroplanes which nobody believed until they came to Europe in July, 1908, and demonstrated their conquest of the air in unmistakable fashion. Since then, as everyone knows, the heavier-than-air machine has accomplished the apparently impossible, and flights of great duration and speed have taken place. Little has been heard of the Wright Bros, publicly of late, but those who know how they are quietly experimenting have little doubt that they will one day once again take Europe by storm "with flights that remove the element of danger in the sport, and with such an improved type of piano that tho comparatively weak effort of an ordinary cyclist will be all that is sufficient to maintain equilibrium in the air.