Sporting & General Medals, Badges & Awards - Cycling

Lot 1445    SESSION 5 (9.30AM TUESDAY 12TH SEPTEMBER)    Sporting & General Medals, Badges & Awards - Cycling (1

Estimate $1,100
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $700

NEW ZEALAND CYCLISTS ALLIANCE, struck in gold (probably 9ct or 15ct, 16.5g, 32mm), no maker, scroll and ring top suspension, reverse inscribed '5 Mile/(Championship)/A.C.Auster/1887'. Very fine.

Ex Colonial Coins & Medals (Brisbane) Auction, October 2007 (lot 810) The James Spencer (UK) Collection

The following courtesy National Library of New Zealand - Papers Past - From Letters to the Editor, New Zealand Herald, 8 March 1887:

Sir, A report appears in this morning's Herald of the Amateur Athletic Sport, in which your reporter makes the following statement respecting the Five-mile Bicycle Race. Six machines started, and to the surprise of a great many, the race was won very easily by Mr A.C.Auster, who rode a machine about half the size of his opponents, but it being double geared, enabled him to get double the number of revolutions without as much propelling power being required.

This is quite a mistake. The Kangaroo Safety machine ridden by Auster is a 36-inch wheel, geared up to go at a speed equal to a 54-inch wheel, but it requires rather more propelling power. It was only borrowed on Saturday morning by Mr.Auster from Mr. A.Kady of Queen-street, and before that morning he had never ridden it. In fact, he was in doubt whether to ride the Kangaroo or his own roadster, and only chose the Kangaroo because it was a somewhat lighter machine.

The Kangaroo bicycle is not specially contrived to ensure speed, but is intended for safety. Perhaps the best means to illustrate the powers of this Kangaroo machine is to give the best records made on the different bicycles for one mile: - Humber races (ordinary type), 2min 31-1/2 sec; safety bicycle (any make), 2min 48 2 5th sec. Mr. Auster is well known as a good English cyclist, and I give below an extract trom the "Cycling and Wheel World Annual" for 1885, which will show to any candid reader that the prize on Saturday fell to Auster, not because he had a specially good machine, but because he was a specially good man. A.C.Auster has also come out strong this season, and has fairly figured on the scratch mark.

At the Speedwell Sports he ran second to Ball in the 10-mile scratch race, and at the meeting of the South London Harriers and Manhattan Athletic Club at the same place in the following week, he beat F.Sutton and ran second to Ratcliff in the 5 miles scratch race. A week later he won the Centaur half-hour scratch race, and on the following Saturday beat both B.Ratcliff and H.A.Speechley (the one-mile champion) in the 3 miles scratch race of the Moseley Harriers, in 9min 50 4 5th secs; waiting tactics being indulged in, he won on the spurt.

He ran second to Sanders Sellers at Huddersfield for the One-mile Championship of the North.

These are his principal performances. He is possessed of a magnificent spurt, and is a steady and consistent rider. - l am, &c., Jas.A.Cooper. Hon.Sec. Waitemata Bicycle Club, 44, Victoria-street, March 7, 1887.