Cycling Notes.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 151, 23 May 1903, Page 16

Cycling Notes.

Road ndeis will be inteiested 1o leal 11 that the Dunlop Tyre Company have fixed on Saturday, August 22nd, for their great Commonwealth Road Race from Warrnambool to Melbourne, a distance of 165 miles. Application has been, made to the League of Victorian Wheelmen for the above date, which is a week earlier than last year's contest, when over 50,000 people witnessed the progress of the 100 competitors along the course. Upon the same' day, and over the same course, the Dunlop Company are also organising the first motor cycle race held in Australia' so that the 22nd August will be a led letter day in cycling and motor circles. According to the latest Irish files to hand great preparations are being made in Ireland for the holding of the greatest international sporting event the world has yet seen viz., the "Gor-don-Bennett Cup." It is anticipated that over half-a-million people will "« at oh the great motor car race between the crack chaffeurs of England, France, Germany, and America. The proposed date for the race is July 9th. The Irish authorities are having the course — a. one hundred miles one, to be covered four times — put in good order so that it will safely carry the tremendous pace some of the big 100 horse-power ca<rs will travel. C. Barden met with defeat in his motor cycle match for £500 with Maurice Fourruer, on the Canning Town tiack (London). The. Frenchman scored in, the first three mile heats, and thus won the match. There is a tendency to increase the width of the handlebars in bicycles. T n many cases they have become too narrow. When the rider is sitting on the machine, the hands should not be nearer together than the width of the shoulders. In fact, it is better that the distance between them should be

slightly gi eater if one' is to get a natural position and avoid contracting the oliest. According to the breadth of the rider's shoulders the bars might vai-y from eighteen inches to twentytwo inches.