The Motosacoche.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 2, 1 December 1908, Page 51

The Motosacoche.

A correspondent writes enthusiastically declaring that the growing popularity of the handy little Motosaeoehe has been frequently remarked, but it is not till one's business or pleasure takes him to remote and the more inaceessable parts of New Zealand that the quality of this popularity is properly understood. I am, lie says, an ai'clent admirer o£ this nattylittle motor cycle, and watch with interest its conquest of our country. This was forcibly impressed upon me recently when a fellow passenger in the s.s. "Kahu" informed me that his way home to Castle Point, on the East Coast, lay over the side of the steamer (with his Motosaeoehe), into a surf boat, and thence per motor along eight miles of ocean beach, broken here and there with patches of huge boulders over which, of course, it was necessary to lift his motor. Again, when gazing from the train at one of the stations on the Main Trunk line with the wondering eyes of a stranger in a strange land, a back blocker on a pack-laden Motosaeoehe looked so grotesquely up-to-date that an involuntary smile went round the carriage. A well-known traveller for an American oil firm, was recently met crossing the Otira Gorge to Christchurch. He had his wife on her ordinary cycle coupled to the side of his Motosaeoehe, and his proud and tolerant smile as the pair glided by, clearly showed he had no desiie to adopt such obsolete methods of travelling as coaching. In the WaiKato, Kotorua. the rough bush tracks from Gisborne to Opotiki, over the Rimutaka, Hokitika, the gold fields of Central Otago; in fact, everywhere is the Motosaeoehe finding its way into man's everyday life. One reverend gentleman considers the fact that morning service is separated from his evening service by 50 miles, of very mixed road, nothing extraordinary now he has a Motosaeoehe, while country doctors hail their Motosaeoehe as the greatest blrssing of the century. It is the fact of its extreme adaptability on all classes of roads and tracks that has made the ordinary bicycle popular, and I have not the slightest doubt that in a short time the easy and luxurious Motosaeoehe will not only secure enormous patronage from the non-cycling public, but will also largely displace the push bicycle here, as on the Continent.