CYCLING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2516, 1 June 1909, Page 2

CYCLING.

WARRNAMBOOL TO MELBOURNE. In answer to many inquiries as to when the big Warrnambool to Melbourne Road Race wil be held this year, the Dunlop Rubber Company, states that no definite date has yet been decided upon, but it will probably be Saturday, October 2. Owing to tho tremendous number of 452 nominations being received for last year s race, resulting in 304 riders starting, the Dunlop Company is considering the question of limiting the starters to 300 in this year’s event. Increasing at the same ‘ratio as from tlie 1907 to the. 190 S event, unless some provision ia made to limit the field of starters, there -would probably be some 3/0 aiders racing this year. Last year the resources of the Dunlop officials along the route were taxed to the utmost in starting, checking and feeding the huge number of contestants and it is Iclt that the limit was about reached. Iho remarkable growth of the popularity of the Dunlop Road Race easily the biggest in the world, is told m the 10l ouin.rr figures:—Starters m 1903, lOo; 1904 125; 1905, 156; 1906, 206, 190/, 235;’1908, 304. SIX DAYS’ RACE. Writing of the victory of Macfarland and Moran in the six-days’ race at Berlin. the London "Sportsman said : That the American team, Macfarland and Moran, have again proved victonous ill a six-dav contest goes to shovv that they are almost of a class apart in this stylo of race. It appears, however, that their tactics, learnt, probably in tho rough school ol Madison Square, seemed reprehensible to the crowd of onlookers, with the -result that the Americans’ victory was but lukewarmly received. Possibly, though, the winners’ nationality mihtated agams a warm reception m the Fatherland, as the riders themselves have always proved their -right to be regarded as “straight” in every sense of the word. It would seem that for the first foui days the Continental cracks menaced the. fliers from the New World, but durum the last forty-eight hours the iormer went under badly, leaving the final dasli in the hands of the men whose previous experience obviously stood them in good stead.