CYCLE AND MOTOR NOTES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 88, 12 April 1912, Page 3

CYCLE AND MOTOR NOTES.

Facing the dawn while the earliest rays of the sun east the glitter of gold on glossy green hills, two hardy, plucky cyclists will swing out from Adelaide to climb the slanting steeps io Aldgate on Good Friday morning, •and to their care will be entrusted a military despatch by Colonel Le Mes Ul'ier, Commandant of the South Australian Military Forces for delivery to Brigadier-General Gordon in Sydney. 1149 miles away. Twenty-four hours later two adventurous and skilled motor cyclists will receive a similar missive for the same destination. Six hours after them t:vo motorists in a car, which has done .lOCTmiles an hoiu at Brooklands (Eng.), will speed out of Adelaide with the utmost power of a racing machine, also bearing this inessage for delivery in Sydney. One hundred and thirty road racing cyclists, fifty-two of the cleverest motoj cyclists in the Continent and several record holding motorists will consti tute, the pulsing, striving, whirling human chain which will link Adelaidi to Sydney. Which of the three will arrive first? All Australia is in forested in the result. It will demonstrate the value of the three types oi road locomotion for defence purposes No one man, or body of ine'ii, will rear, any personal reward or gain any per sonal kudos, Patriotism alone is th< incentive and their country's gratitud will be their only recompense. Th. World is round when you study : map of the globe on the school black board, but when you mount a bicycl or jump on to a motor cycle or sinl down on the front seat of a raotoCar Which can travel as fast as the swallow, to pedal or be carried by pe trol from Adelaide to Sydney, you fin< that the 1149 miles of road arc a gigantic switchback with many steej

dips and sudden rises. Think of tlu changing and coloured landscape: vvhich these men will fly across; the\ will be above the fleecy clouds anc down on the sun-baked plains. The .rill flash through towns arid tiny lamlets, past the camps of pioneer; in the primeval bush, over mountain; vith great sweeps and curves, acros sweet pastures, over fine rivers, through sand deserts which are water less, along magnificent plains to state !y cities. They will hear forest noise; ! :eyed to a harmonious pitch. Thei. ;ars will catch the distant music o rushing rivers and be deafened wit • he roar of brazen tongued industrj They will hasten ceaselessly day am light in the exhilarating softness o the sunrise and into the chill "of twi •ight, in the refreshing sliadows o the mountains and into the wastes o arid sand. Fair weather or foul, gooc road or bad, they must battle onto tli distant goal. It is a great undertak ing which makes the pulse quicken and it has a splendid purpose. Tin express trains of which Australian: ire justly proud take thirty-live hour to cover the distance, with every a; instance that ingenuity can devise The motorists have to reach Sydne; in forty hours over roads which are i some places almost impassable. A; the Americans say, they are "up ag ainst a tough proposition." Th< cyclists and the motor cyclists meai to make it tougher if they cab. Ther will be no looking back. All eyes- wi] be gazing in the one direction. I is anticipated that the cyclists wi! average about sixteen and a half mile•in hour, the motor cyclists twenty five miles, and the motorists twenty aine miles. In the great "Warrnani bool-Mclbourne road race the competi tors averaged over twenty miles ai hour, but they race along the bes stretch of track in the States. If tin whole route from Adelaide to Sydne. were like the road from Warrnamboo to Melbourne, the cyclists would eas lly top twenty miles an hour, for the,' are in quick relays at comparative]; short intervals. The nature of th> road determines the changes. Tin solid and exhausting climb from Adel aide to Aldgatc, 12| miles, is con sidored a fair task for the first team but when it comes to the level countr; between Wellington and Mcningie, % miles is not too much, while from Mit tagong to Picton, 25;i miles, will nol overtax the riders. The shortest spii is 32 minutes, the longest spell tws hours in the saddle. Possibly the tor toise will beat the hare. The men win try to scorch in pitch-balck autuim night over practically trackless stret clies littered with all manner of pit falls for the reckless, will in the aggregate travel slower than those win carefully and steadily pick their way The cyclist can ride where the moto: cyclist'has to dismount, and the motoi car will get stuck in sand or loose loan where the motor cyclist with his light er machine will squirm over the trick; surface. The cyclist can sneak alonj a bumpy road faster than a motor cyclist who is bumped out of the seal if he puts on any speed, while tin schedule has been so drawn that th< motorist can cram on pace no mattei wdiat the obstacles. Whole-hcartcdh the little army of men engaged in the great.ride have entered into the test. Some of them live 150 miles away from the section over which they air to ride. They are not rich men, yet they arc giving up their time and spending their money to help the project through. Like Sempronius, i! is not theirs to command success, but they certainly deserve it. One of the motor cyclists has specially bought a new r machine, and bis keenness may be gauged from the fact that he has already been over his division three times by day and intends to have another run at night. It is encumbent upon each of the riders to acqauint himself with all the intricacies of his section. It is also their duty to lie in readiness on their, stations a couple of hours before the team behind them are expected to arrive. Think of turning out of a cosy bed lat 1 a.m. to wait for a despatch which must be carried at hot speed until

5 a.m., and then having to turn round and pedal home and have; to wait two days to know if your efforts enabled your system of transport to lie victorious. That takes a lot of selfdiscipline, self-abnegation and patience. Of hazards there will bo sufficient and to spare. There may be folk who think that the inter-capital relay ride will be merely a stimulating picnic outing. Let the story of the last ride, told tersely by the participants, speak for itself : "Shipley smashed front rim, bursting tyre." "Taylor took ill during run." "Roads very bad, several falls, one puncture." "Free had a nasty fall." "Purvis had a fall." "Many falls in sand.. Collins broke handlebar of his machine near end of run." s "Odium punctured and after repairing subsequently broke front axle of machine." "E. Pendlebury fell over a dog." "Bradhurst fell and lost one shoe in the darkness; finished without it." "Road bad; Bruce had bad spill; road over edge of creek falling 15 feet."

"Three punctres and three falls." King punctured and rode Oil inn four miles."

Anybody who wants more convincing evidence that the ride requires grit, grip and grim resolution associated tvith alertness and resourcefulness, would be hard to satisfy this side of the grave. The men know what they are tackling ami what .may happen; with true Australian courage they are cheerfully taking all the risks. This relay race h above everything else Australian. It is an Australian experiment carried out by Australians for Australians, and the whole world will oxamine the results of this searching test of the cycle and motor as a means of communication and mobilisation. The stirring lyric verses which held us breathless in our boyhood as We read "How they brought the good •lews from Ghent to Aix," and of gal'ant Roland 'With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, "And the circles of red for his eye

sockets' rim" .vill be* modernised and rivalled by mr own stout-hearted athletes, who in these piping times of peace are going to elucidate a problem of Avar. '■' 'Good, speed,' cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew," ; may' we not also wish our tripartite- teams "Good speed" and "Good luck?"' Francis Birtles, the well-known Australian overlanding cyclist, looks like again making good, this time in a new role. After his recent successfid attempt on the Frcmantle to Sydney cycle record—which ho reduced' by no less than 5 days 9 hours—Birtles stated that he was confident that he could pilot a car across an overland route from the West to East of Australia. Such a motor feat had never previously even been attempted, it being thought amongst motorists that such a ride was impracticable owing to heavy sandy stretches and boggy dried up lake beds to be negotiated between Norseman in West Australia and Eucla, the repeating telegraph station on the border line between West and South Australia. A little more than six weeks ago Birtles announced that the trip was possible, to-day the feat is practically accomplished. Birtles and Mr S. Ferguson, of the Canada Cycle and Motor. Co., Sydney, left by steamer for Frcmantle early in March, taking with them a 10 h.p. Brush runabout on which to make the attempt. The Vacuum Oil Co. undertook to arrange for relays of petrol and lubricating oil at different point;; along the route, a matter of considerable trouble as regards transporttion into the wild country west of Eucla, but by the middle of March the pioneer motor overlanders had everything ready for a start. On Saturday, March 16th, Messrs Birtles and Ferguson left the Perth Post Office at 1 p.m. for Sydney. Southern Crops was reached on Monday after noon and Coolgardie (351 miles) at •! p.m. on Wednesday, March 20th. Reports next came to hand stating that the party had reached the Balladonia Overland Telegraph Station (south of Fraser's Range) after considerable difficulty in crossing the dried up lake beds between Norseman and Balladonia, and on several Occasions considerable trouble and delay were entailed extricating the car./The next stage, across Eyre's sand-patch and Hampton Range, would, it was anticipated, give great trouble, but Birtles and his companion have pulled through, for they wired on March 28th: "Arrived Eucla, got over long stage successfully, thousand miles, no tyre trouble, been raining heavily." Although some very heavy and rough country has yet to be negotiated across the Nullabor Plains to Port Augusta, there is now every chance of the first attempt to motor across Australia from west to east terminating successfully, for in September hist year sonic members of the Transcontinental Railway Commission motored to within 70 or 80 miles of Eucla from the Adelaide side. The Brush car used is a single cylinder (bore 4in., stroke Sin.) light American runabout, the lowest priced car produced in the United States. That is can stand considerable knocking about has been well demonstrated in the trip under notice. It's coming! Horse-drawn cabs aro to be no longer permitted to ply for hire in the-.streets of Berlin from the beginning of this month. Each of the sixty licensed drivers alfected by this new regulation will receive £3O as compensation for disturbance, and a specially favourable consideration will be shown to their applications for licences to drive motor-cabs. An ingenious device intended to check joy-riding, or unauthorised using of cars by chauffeurs, is now being patented in America. The device

consists of a copper plate which may bo fastened to any prominent part of the car where it will be visible. On -the plate is a hinged metal disc, the hinge being bolted to the middle of the plate in a substantial manner. When the owner or his authorised agent is in charge of the car, the disc is turned down and locked in place with a staple and spring padlock, in this position the disc shows a black enamelled circle. When the owner is through with the car and Avishes to have nobody use it, he unlocks the padlock, turns up the disc until it lies flatly against the plate, and locks it again through another staple at the top of the plate. In his position, the plate shows two bright red discs. The plan is to notify the police or others who are engaged in preserving the peace that there is always something wrong when a car appears on the street with two red discs showing. The British War Office recently carried out some motor cycling tests at Brookldnds (Eng.), and it looks as if the English military authorities are about to recognise tho motor cycle as a suitable unit in warfare. Several of the leading English motor cycle manufacturers were invited to submit their latest models to" speed and hill climbing tests and after the performance of tho machines the War Office representatives expressed their satisfaction at the results of the tests. The "Tourist Trophy" motor cycle races, the premier events of their kind in the world, will again be hold in the Isle of Man this year,, the dates being June 28th for the small powered or Junior Race, Avhilst the Senior or high powered event will bo decided on July Ist. The event is being organised by the Auto-Cycle Union of England. Ht was in this event last year that the English and American cracks Collier and De Rosier met for the first time, and although neither won, the Englishman performed better than the American champion.