THEY HAD THE LUCK!

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17761, 7 December 1929, Page 4

THEY HAD THE LUCK!

MOTOR-CYCLISTS’ NARROW ESCAPE. DASH DOWN ALBERT STREET. Two young niotor-c/clists from Miratoto can consider themselves to be numbered amongst the lucky ones of this earth. ■ t ■ , They were riding a motor-cycle in Upper Albert Street yesterday, and the rider had put the machine into low gear to act as extra braking. The roughness of the surface caused the machine to bump and the gear slipped into neutral. The brakes failed to hold the double load and the .rider and his pillion passenger and the machine ran away down the steep declivity. Gathering speed as it went it shot down the hill with its burden clinging tenaciously until tne crossing with Pollen Street was reached. For tuna tely this was clear and the cycle whizzed across down lower Albert Street at a terrific bat. . It was going too fast to take the corner and ran on to the footpath. Here a tuft of grass (Please note, tufts of grass are occasionally . . . only very occasionally, found on Thames footpaths) proved the Waterloo of the pillion rider, who quitted hurriedly without asking permission. This sudden departure in turn upset his male and he swerved into the drain lining tne road Here he shot up a rise, went across the road and landed in the other drain. The next obstacle was a pip© which the cycle cleared in fine stvle, but the jump was too much for the jockey who emulated A. Eastwood at Takapuna, and .like Buffalo Bill’s redskin, “bit the dust.” - (That did not trouble the cycle, however, since it continued on its career at top and finally crashed cn the roadDltmages: —One buckled back wheel, one broken, headlamp. One <tarn trouser-leg. and two badlv-scared cyclists. , ~ , Arid some people say there s no such thing as luck!