’CYCLING.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue I, 7 January 1899, Page 17

’CYCLING.

The Auckland Cycling Club must have been gratified at the splendid attendance at their carnival on Tuesday evening, on the exhibition sports ground. There must have been nearly five thousand people present, and the capacious grand stand was filled from end to end. Experience has now shown that the sports held in the evening at the Exhibition are patronised by the public to a far greater extent than afternoon races. Of course the attendance at the Exhibition is always largest in the evening, and so it is easier then to draw a crowd to the sports than it would be during the day. Besides, watching the races on a fine cool night, when the track is brightly illuminated, is much pleasanter than during the heat of the afternoon. Some of the cyclists have not the same feeling of security at night, on account of the shadows on the track; but it is reassuring to note that on Tuesday night there was but one spill, and that occurred through the rider's tyre puncturing. Various are the explanations which have been given for the ‘camel back,’ the most hideous and ungainly of all the positions devised for bicycle riding. The most generally accepted has of course, been that riders bend over their handle bars in order to i educe the resistance of their bodies to the wind, but a French physician has now come forward to declare that, like a good many other popular beliefs, this is quite erroneous. According „■> him, the position is due to the fact that the lungs create the instinct to infaie themselves with the greatest possible ease, and in going at a rapid rate through the air a new relation is created to which the body has to adapt itself, and so far from being an objection, declares the physician, the hump in obedience to this law’ is really the only rational method of riding. The forced auction : ales in the summer (says ‘Bicycling News’) may have played havoc with the cycle agent, but it has done good in one way, viz., by inducing people to ride who would not have done so but for the ‘bargain’ so temptingly held before them by the specious auctioneer.. The sale-room bargain appeals to a man who thinks, ‘Well, if I can buy a first-class bicycle for £ 10, I don’t mind getting one for the wife. She has been bothering me for a long time for one.’ And then, seized by the craze, he invests in one for himself. Result: two more cyclists and more work for the under —we mean the cycle repairer. Personally conducted cycling tours on the Continent bid fair to rival Cooks’ excursions in popularity. For myself, I think one of the great charms of wheeling in a new district is to fly hither-and thither at your own sw'eet will with no fixed plan of campaign, not tied down by arrangements that have been made for you, but exploring in this direction or that as your fancy moves you. There are, however, a large lumber of tourists who like to lie saved the trouble of thinking for themselves, and for these a Mr Milnes, of the North Road Club, provides very successful trips. His mixed parties seem to ‘catch on,’ and France to be the most popular country for touring, as all cyclists who cross the Channel seem anxious to

include Paris in the tour. In order to prevent scorching, Mr Sparling, the Continental director of tours, appoints one of the ladies captain of the tour, and allows her to fix the pace. The club rule that the captain shall lead is then enforced, and any member of the party who passes her is fined. The nature of the fine is decided upon by mutual consent, and varies from a bottle of wine to a pair of gloves. Mr Milnes is contemplating arranging personally conducted tours throughout the United Kingdom next summer. The Brough Polytechnic Cycling Club has earned unenviable notoriety for its experience at Morden, Surrey. Its members held a garden party last June there, and the host of the Crown Inn supplied the tea. Having guaranteed an attendance of 75, they came down, like wolves on the fold, 300 strong, and in the visitors’ book left the record, ‘Borough Polytechnic’s Cycling Club’s garden party, June 11. 300 members and friends, and we all has a great time. Hurrah!’ They departed, however, without paying, and when the bill for £lO was presented, first of all complained that there was no green stuff, and then that the bread was new, and finally decided to pay less than they had agreed upon. Mine host, however, sued, and in the course of the proceedings alleged that some of the cyclists had drunk eight cups of his tea right off, and that they had had as much bread and butter and jam and cake as a healthy man could eat. Eventually he received judgment for the £lO for which he had sued. A man in South Devon holds the record for puncture mending. Being short of patches, and having punctured on the sands, he cut off a dry piece of seaweed, solutioned it over the puncture, and whirled on his homeward way rejoicing. The Touring Club de France is having its own private hotel in a central part of Paris. The usual crop of accidents is reaped in England every week, but some stranger than usual are worthy of record. A cyclist near Whitton rushed ‘suddenly down a steep place, into a herd of swine that were crossing the road. It was the cyclist, not the swine, that had the heavy fall this time. Another enterprising rider in Scotland mistook the lamps of a dogcart for the lights of bicycles, and tried to run between them. He collided with the horse, the shaft of the dogcart went under his armpit and tore his coat, the vehicle passed over him, but although the bicycle was smashed, he escaped.