SHOCKING CYCLING FATALITY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13843, 24 December 1908, Page 5

SHOCKING CYCLING FATALITY.

MOTORIST KILLED WHILE

TRAINING

I Per Press Association. CrgUSTCIJURCH. Doc. 2.'1.

Mr J oik's, of Junes llron.. well Known in cycling circles in Christohnroh. had boon practising on a track with a motor cycle with a view to the coming contest on Christmas Day. Ho had gono round several times v ith another cyclist, and was slowing down to onable the other to come up. Suddenly the tyro came off the front wheel, and ho lo.^t all control of the machine, which bounded forward, ran up the track, and crashed into a paling fence which •■iiards the track on the outward side. Jones was thrown forward over tho machine! and his head struck a sharp paling. Death was almost instantaneous. The accident was not due to the condition of the track, but to ■ unforeseen circumstances. Jones Avas thirty years o,f age, and leaves a widow and children..

At the inquest held to-night, S. H. Webb, caretaker of Lancaster Park, said Jones had not got round more than three times before he ran into the tence. He was thrown into the air and fell on the asphalt track. Jones was travelling not faster than fifteen miles an hour at the time of the occurrence. Witness thought the front tyre burst and Jones put his left hand down to turn one of the taps. This apparently caused him to lose coiitrol of the cycle, and it ran into the fence.

Joseph Alolloy, a youth of fourteen, said he witnessed the accident, and in his opinion Jones was travelling at the rate of thirty-six miles an hour. The brother and partner of deceased, in answer to the Coroner, said deceased ; was training for a race which was^got up practically for advertising purposes, lie did not consider the Lancaster Park track safe for motor cycling. Hii own theory was that his brother ntust have been stooping to adjust the mechanism of the machine in order to «^et more pace out of it, and did riot notice in .time that he had come to the corner. The tyre might not have burst until the accident occurred. ' The Coroner gave a verdict that deceased had met his death by accident through being thrown from a motor cycle.