'Bike club celebrates milestone birthday'

THE GLEBE, 9 APRIL 2008.

FROM penny-farthings to carbon frames, the Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club has experienced a centenary of bike history.

The club was founded on April 8, 1908, and in the early days was one of Australia's strongest clubs.

The past five years has seen a surge in membership and it now has 80 members. Its focus now is to boost its ranks of women and junior members.

Along with the Marrickville Bicycle Club, Dulwich Hill designed and operated a velodrome at Henson Park from 1937 to the late 1970s.

This was used to host the cycling events for the Empire Games in 1938.

In the second half of the last century, interest in cycling started to decline resulting in two clubs, Marrickville and Petersham, joining with Dulwich Hill.

Lionel Cox, originally from the Marrickville club, is still a member and helps run weekly training sessions.

Cox won a gold medal at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki in the tandem track event and a silver medal in the 1000m sprint scratch race.

In the late 1970s the Henson Park velodrome closed to make way for light towers so the Newtown Jets matches could be broadcast on television.

A velodrome was built in Camperdown, in what is now O'Dea Reserve, which operated until 1998.

The club now trains at the Canterbury Velodrome in Undercliffe.

Its link to the past is maintained through the work of Alan Sumner who builds penny-farthings and sells them throughout the country.

The club enters the National Penny Farthing Championships in Tasmania each year and the most recent title was won by Dulwich Hill rider Huw Morgan.

CLUB RESULTS

Results-1902-2007 NSW Road Teams Championship

1932-2000 NSW Sprint & Time Trial

Also;

The Arthur Donelly training program from the 1950's!!!!

Vol 1 Auto suggestion & self hypnosis by Forbes Carlile, Feb 1955.

The Lionel Cox collection...

Vol 1 Track training tips, Aug 1961