CYCLING TECHNIQUE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19769, 17 February 1927, Page 6

CYCLING TECHNIQUE

LAST NIGHT’S DEMONSTRATION IGNORANCE OF GENERAL PUBLIC At the conclusion of the big threemile scratch race held under the auspices of the Wanganui Cycling Club, a number of people set up a hooting demonstration against “Bob” Spears, the world’s crack track rider, when he won the race after sitting in behind his field for twelve laps. The demon stration was apparently caused because Spears did not take a lap. “Your public show a sad lack of knowledge of the art of cycling,” said Spears, conversing with a “Chronicle” man after the event. “The conditions provided for half-crown lap prizes for the eleven laps up to the final, and it would have been a nice sort of thing for me to have gone out and collected five or six half-crowns when most of the riders had not a ghost of a chance in the final sprint. As a matter of fact, the lap prizes are for the boys who help to make up a decent field. I remember one occasion in America when Frank Kromer, the crack American rider, took a lap prize from a lad before a large crowd in a New York stadium. The crowd went wad and hooted Kromer, even though the winning of the lap was accidental on the part of the champion.” Spears spoke in high praise of the Wanganui track, which he preferred to any other track he had ridden on in the Dominion. “It is very fast,” he said, “but is slightly dead as there is not a sanded furface.” W. H. Nesbitt, tho motor-paced cyclist, also praised the track.