CYCLING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 702, 20 August 1903, Page 11

CYCLING.

At a meeting of the committee of the Pioneer Amateur Bicycle and Athletic Club last week, a notice of motion was received from Mr R. T. Lees to the effect that the club should siecede from the League of New Zealand Wheelmen.

In France the practice of a vector riding round the track after winning a race is universally followed, the last lap being aptly termed the “ tour d’honneur.”

A Maori Cycling Club has been formed in South Canterbury, with headquarters at Temuka, and has applied for affiliation to the League.

All the English cycling papers express regret that C. Rouffe, of New Zealand, was a non-starter for the N.G.U. championships, andi lone report states that a heat of the mile championship was kept waiting in the hopes he would turn up.

It is remarkable what a great amount of work a good bicycle will stand, and in this connection it is something like a watch. Watches a hundred years old have been known to run well. Each will have ticked 240 times every minute, and must, therefore, have given a total number of over twelve thousand million ticks. Of course, the wear must have been practically nil. In the running of a bicycle 5000 miles a year—not an exceptional mileage, it will be admitted—both front and rear wheel bearings make 3,770,000 complete revolutions without any material deterioration taking place. Similarly in

ih j I! I 31 I I i -ill a high-speed cycle-motor the tool marks may still be visible in the cylinder after years of running, although one year’s work may represent two hundred million passes of the piston over the surface of the cylinder. But with an excess of speed or pressure wear, of course, takes place rapidly.

Robl, Goernemann, Demke, and Salzmann were pitted against the Englishman, T. Hall, in a 75 kiloms., paced race, styled the Grand Prix de Berlin, at the Friedenau Path. Hall took the lead after a few miles had been covered, and gave Robl such a hard race that , he retired, Salzmann, who finished second to Hall, being five laps behind, and Goememann further in the rear. Time, ihr 4min.

Floyd M’Farland, the American champion, and Ivor Lawson intend leaving America for Sydney orf September io. M’Lean, the fast pace rider, will come before the October race meeting. 0. H. Brook, the winner of the Dunlop Company’s big Road Race from Goulbum to Sydney, is- only seventeen years of age, and is a Goulburnite. He was considered an outsider, but he led all the way. He will have his expenses paid to the Warrnambool-Melbourne Race on the 22nd inst. ‘ It is on record that, cycling in its crudest form existed, .either in imagination or reality, as far back as 1642, and this record is to be found, above all places, in the design in a stained church window in the remote English village of Stoke Poges, not far from Windsor. The picture represents a youth astride a kind of hobby horse on wheels, the front one of which only is visible. It would seem to show that the idea of the feasibility of locomotion by mechanical means was implanted centuries ago, even if • it was not altogether achieved. * • « • “The Sportsman” thus describes the big match between Major Taylor and H. Meyers, the winner of the Grand Prix de Paris After a couple of preliminary laps, the two cracks lined up for Match 1. At the crack of the pistol, Taylor sprinted for the tandem piloted by Gougoltz and Hedspath (the latter also a coloured crack). Meyers however, finding the pace not fast enough, sprinted in front of the tandem, and the negro followed. At the bell Taylor held a slight lead, with Meyers on his right,, and, following his tactics that won him the Grand Prix, the latter made a sudden jump past the negro, and piled the race on so that Taylor could not hang f to his back wheel as he passed. Riding out to the finish, Meyers won by half a lap, the negro sitting up and claiming a foul, asserting that Meyers cut him in, but this was not allowed. Time, 2min 3sec. Match 2 (1000 metres) : Taylor., again made for the tandem, and this j time the pace was . quicker, so Meyers ; Contented himself by. hanging on to the negro’s back wheel until the last lap was reached, then, with another of his sudden dashes, he jumped past the negro , and the tandem, and got a five-length lead. The black flyer then put in some fine riding, and reduced Meyer’s lead to two yards, by which distance he losjj.