MAN SPEED.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 16155, 21 July 1924, Page 2

MAN SPEED.

WITHOUT ENGINES. The nows from Switzerland that Cap tain L*\ A. M. Browning, of tlie British bob-sleigh team entered for the Olympic Winter Games, was travelling at forty miles an hour when his bob overturned, no doubt surprised some people who are inclined to take it for granted that to achieve any considerable speed, an engine of some kind is essential. Yet, as the above quoted incident shows, surprisingly high speeds can bo reached without the assistance of any mechanical power. The sprinter who covers a hundred yards in ten seconds, travels at an average speed of rather more than twenty miles an hour legal maximum for a motor-car, and during part of the race must considerably exceed the limit.

A man on roller skates can travel still faster, for although the ordinary skater makes a circuit of the lank at only about fourteen miles an hour, the racing expert has been known to attain a speed of twenty-five miles.

Ice skating produces about the same maximum speed as roller skating, but it is estimated that in ice hockey, and over short distances, rather higher speeds are sometimes attained. Diving can produce very high velocities, varying with the height from which the dive is made. A diver, for instance, who takes oil from a height of fifty feet is actually travelling at the rate of thirty-eight miles an hour when he enters tlie water.

The motor-cyclist whose speedometer registers sixty miles an hour experiences a glow of pride in his mount, yet nothing has been done which has not already been achieved by man-power.

A speed of more than sixty-one miles an hour lias been reached on an ordinary “push” bicycle, and although the “push” cyclist was paced by a motor cyclist and protected from wind pressure. this is none the less a remarkable feat.

It is. however, only when wheels are abandoned that the highest man-power speeds became possible.

Fu a race on skis down the snowclad mountain slope an average speed of forty-five miles an hour is riot uncommon even among the lesser lights of the sport, while the expert will equal the speed of an expreses train, and cover the distance at sixty miles an hour.

Lugeing on a specially prepared snow or ice runs, frequently produces a speed of forty-five miles an hour, and on the famous Cresta run a speed of eighty miles an hour has been reached.