MOTORING & CYCLING

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1294, 11 February 1915, Page 31

MOTORING & CYCLING

The Taranaki Transport Company, a comparatively new venture, has already several new freighters at work in the district, and the passenger service is proving a great boon to outlying settlements.

The Auckland Automobile Association is contemplating the issue of a North Island road guide. The same Association has decided to approach the Licensed Victuallers’ Association regarding the accommodation, both for touris s and motor cars, in country towns.

The French road-racing cracks are being largely availed of by the French war authorities. It is being recognised that a well-trained cyclist is too valuable a unit to be made one of a group; consequently these men are be'ng picked out for special service.

The Hawera County Council is making it obligatory upon motor lorries to have observation glasses, so that drivers can see anything approaching from the rear.

The Canterbury Automobile Association has set aside £l5O to help in the completion of the Ziz-zag road from Lyttelton to Sumner.

Petrol is to be taxed in the States. They can bear it. It only costs about half as much per tin as in New Zealand.

The official result of the recentlyheld Melbourne-Sydney Motor Cycle Reliability Trial has been announced, and shows that expert examination of machines at the conclusion of the 565 miles run resulted in 13 of the 19 contestants who reached Sydney with full control points being penalised for machine troubles.

Edison is credited with discovering a means by which a submarine can stay one month under the sea if necessary without replenishing its a ; r provision, which would renew itself while the vessel was under water. The apparatus, which extracts oxygen from the sea, is similar to the gills of a fish.

It is understod, that a prominent English Midland firm proposes putting a complete car on the market at 55 guineas, inclusive of dynamo lighting set. Standardisation and a big output should make production possible at that figure, and it w‘ll stem the tide of the American invasion.

The Hutt road is once again in trouble. Mr. C. H. Izard has given notice to the Petone Borough Council that he intends to claim for damages to a spring of his motor car. The Council accepts no responsibility.

Many of the German officers have their own bicycles with them, and take a hand in night scouting to observe for themselves.

Up to the end of last November fully 290 private owners of cars had been accepted for ambulance work at Home.

A motor ambulance convoy was raised at Home by Mr. A. Du Gros, which consisted of 41 ambulances, 2 travelling workshops, 3 stores lorries, and 10 motor cycles.

The motor sports held under the auspices of the Manawatu Motor Cycle Club attracted a large gathering. The proceeds at the gate go to the Belgian Fund.

A party of members of the Chamber of Commerce, Westport, made a long motor run of 487 miles in 24 hours actual travelling time. The trip was through Nelson and Marlborough to Christchurch.

A large American company doing a considerable business in Australia has placed a big order with an Australia a tyre firm All cars imported into Australia from this firm will now be fitted with Australian tyres.

It is estimated that Germanv 120,000 cyclists at the outbreak of hostilities

When the war broke out’ there were 10,000 applicants for 2000 positions as dispatch riders, and the author ities accepted youngsters of between 21 an? 23; and there were plenty such, all expert; and some of them “crack” riders.

The airmen who raided the Zeppelin airship shed at Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance, flew 250 miles, air line, and penetrated 120 miles into Germany. News from Switzerland states they destroyed a new Zeppelin which had only been inflated the day previously.

About thirty representative residents of New Plymouth were the p-uests of the Taranaki Motor Transport Company for a run in a new char-a-banc which is being placed on the coastal run between New Plymouth and Opunake. The powerful machine experienced no difficulty in negotiating the hills, some of which are particularly severe.

Russia has purchased 10,000 bicycles from British makers, and has further large batches on order, and Belgium has some 5000 cyclist scouts. The French and English authorities are also extensively using the cyclist soldiers, and find them invaluable in many ways.

There were eighty entries for the motor cycle races held at Tauherenikau, Wairarapa. • • • The Amsterdam press states that as a resul. of the British air raid on Essen a big repairing shed for motor cars and 400 cars were wrecked. Mr. Wylie, who has returned to Wellington after an absence of two years, has motored over six thousand miles in Great Britain. He was accompanied by his wife and daughter. # * * V The Victorian Motor Cycle Club is holding a reliability trial. The distance is approximately 156 miles, a circuit of 39 miles, to be covered four times. The trial is divided into two sections, the Triumph Cup, for singlecylinder machines not exceeding 600 c.c., and the Isaacson Cup, for all powered twins. * * * * A possible cause of noise in an engine lies in the looseness of the studs or of the yokes which hold the valve guides in place in the crank case. A little looseness might be quite sufficient to start a slight rapping noise, and, moreover, there would inevitably be an increase of wear on the moving parts of the valve lifter.

If you wish to keep the plated parts in good condition throughout the winter, coat them well with vaseline, and the accumulated mud and dust can afterwards be easily removed with a rag.

A gradually increasing difficulty in starting a motor may result from the leaking of the valves, which not only allows the gas to escape and so reduces compression but also allows the air to leak in and so upsets the proportions of the mixture —to say nothing, of course, of reducing the power of the engine.

The urgent demand for rubber for German military requirements may be gauged by the efforts that have been made to obtain it- through devious channels. And every day the war continues the greater will be Germany’s need for rubber, as well as for petrol and copper. For instance, it is known that already there are no motor tyres to be had in Brussels.

At a meeting held at Norwich, the Norwich Chamber of Agriculture decided to present to the War Office for use at the front two motor ambulances, costing £450 each. The cars are to be inscribed “The Norfolk Farmers’ Ambulance,” to show the men fighting for their country that the Norfolk agriculturists have not forgotten them.

The B.S.A. factory at Birmingham is guarded like a fort —there are soldiers round it night and day.

Mr J. B. Clarkson, of Christchurch proposes to motor from Sydney to Melbourne and Adelaide, and return to New Zealand via Launceston Tasmania.

The English war authorities have decided to form an Army Cyclist Corps as a distinctive branch of their fighting services. The experiences of the British forces in France and Belgium during the first three months of the war satisfied the English authorities of the value of the soldier-cyclist, with the result that a new branch of the English Army is to be formed.

At the outbreak of war the B.S-A. firm got an order to deliver 55 machines on the following day. The machines were not even assembled, bu,t they were put together by the mechanical staff, working at highest pressure, and were ridden down to the depot next morning.

The Hutt road, Wellington’s main artery, is a constant source of trouble and expense. In a recent letter the City Engineer said: —“I desire to draw attention to the immense amount of damage wh.ch this road is sustaining from the great speeds at which motor vehicles are driven over it. During the last week I have seen one of the heaviest motor cars in the city driven over tins road at a speed of about 60 miles per hour, and from the way in which the road surface was distributed it could plainly be seen how unsu: able the ordinary macadam construct.on is for such traffic. The sooner arrangements are made to properly control the road and put it in order, and also to limit the speed of vehicles, the better. The cost of putt.ng this road in proper order will be considerable and the work should be put in hand at the beginning of the autumn.” The road has now been definitely taken over by the City Council, which will collect the rates from the respective local bodies interested. * * * ♦ Whatever . may happen to Germany politically, industrially it will still possess highly-trained workmen, its asset of scientific industrial research, its patient, efficient methods of manufacture and of salesmanship. These are qualities only destroyed by the extinction of a people, and this is not possible. It is not wise or justifiable to count on any lasting commercial animosity against Germany, and the powers of renaissance of a country and a people after a great war have been shown by France to be phenomenal. So that in the end the battle of commerce will be decided by the relative 'fitness of the nations concerned to manufacture efficiently just as it has been before. —Mr. L. H. Pomeroy in “Automobile Engineering and the War,” a paper presented to .he Institution of Automobile Engineers.

Commander Briggs, who was brought to earth after destroying the Zeppelin sheds on Lake Constance, was shot down by perforation of his petrol tank. He was also wounded in rhe head by rifle fire, and his landing was so violent that he sustained a fractured thigh. Notwithstanding his injuries, his captors were proceeding to violence, against which he was defend ng himself with his revolver when the German military arrived and made him prisoner. He is thirty-two years of age, hails from Bristol, and is one of the most experienced pilots of the R.N.A.S. Originally an engineer lieu-tenant-commander in the Navy, he became attached for duty to the flying school at Eastchurch, where he developed into one of the best skilled and most scientific of the fine group of aviators turned out from the Sheppey base. He is the holder of the British altitude record of 14,920 ft., secured at Eastchurch on March 11 of last year, the machine being a Bleriot monoplane with an 80 h.p. Rhone motor. He was appointed SquadronCommander on November 27, 1913.