1930s Cycling Magazines

CYCLING in the 30s



The things you find when cleaning out the study.

 I decided it was time to repaint the study at home and the first thing I needed to do was clean out all the old crap from the last 20 years - CDs, magazines, books and memorabilia from my varied interests over the years. Amongst all this I came across some treasured cycling magazines from the 30s that someone had given me when I was a teenager. I also had a heap of the Australian Cyclist magazine (dating from the late 40s to the 70s) that was published by Cycling Promoter and Bike Shop owner Bill Long (Progress Cycles in Prahran).
After retiring from racing in 84, I gave these to Velocino mechanic, John Donnelly who then passed them onto Warren Meade in Bairnsdale, the collector of all things cycling.

Anyway, I digress, back to the old magazines.
Back then they went under the title of Australian Cycling - the Cycling Authority of the Southern Hemisphere.  The earliest one I have (Vol 1. No 8) is from Thursday, November 6, 1930. They were published weekly and sold for three pence (3d) and usually consisted of 16 pages.

On opening the first page I was intrigued by the first advertisement at the top of the page, it read "Successful Cyclists smoke Puff Cigarettes."

Track Cycling was huge back then with every little country town having a track carnival, sometimes on bitumen but also on grass or dirt. I remember racing on the dirt tracks of Wangaratta and Burramine and once as a kid on the grass of Preston Football Ground.
In the coming events section of the magazine, the towns of Packenham, Castlemaine, Jeparit, Horsham, Nar Nar Goon, Beechworth, Echuca, Broadford and Warrigul were all holding carnivals in the November and December of 1930.

The big Melbourne carnivals were held at two venues. One was the old Motordrome just opposite our current white elephant (what do they call it these days) and pretty much where the 1956 Olympic Velodrome once was. The other venue was the Exhibition track. It was a big flat bitumen track set beside the Exhibition building in Carlton where the Melbourne Museum now stands. The tracks had two feuding promoters and one year, to add confusion to the history of the Austral Wheel Race, both promoters ran the same race in the one year. (Strange how things don't change!!!)


Swan St is at the top of the picture with the Yarra river is just in the bottom right corner.

The steep banking of the Motordrome.



The Exhibition velodrome



The description on the postcard gives it the title of Speedway. Both tracks ran motor cycles.

 The opening track meeting held at the three lap to the mile Motordrome featured the star motor pace rider of the time, Ossie Nicholson who won the 5 mile event, 3 up match race behind the big motors. These were regular events at the Motordrome with challenges thrown out between Nicholson, Hubert Opperman, RW (Fatty) Lamb and Roy Johnson. Just as a side mention, Johnson had a bike shop in Elsternwick Rd and I borrowed his scrap books from the day - they were fascinating, wish I could borrow them again now. Just down the road from his shop was a newsagency owned by Jack Hoobin who won the World Amateur Road Race in the early 50s. Although I tried to meet him, he was never in the shop when I called in.

Within the "letters to the Editor" there was a complaint about too many punctures due to the cinders on the racing surface. Most of the meetings were run in conjunction with both dirt motor cycle races and high speed motor bikes on the saucer track surface. I'd heard from an old bloke who went there often that an over eager spectator leaning over the lip of the track was decapitated by one of the motor cycles..........a myth, maybe but there were certainly some fatalities and horrendous injuries at the track.


For those of us that hold a CCCC licence, the Club ran its race reports in Australian Cycling.
I'll try to add more of these in future posts and maybe get some feedback from those who can remember.



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