Kolarz Polski, Vol 1, No 1
Articles in this issue
- The publishers' opening manifesto for the first number of Kolarz Polski, arguing that Poland's general sporting press cannot serve cycling properly and that a dedicated paper is needed to gather the country's scattered riders and clubs. It promises expert training guidance for young racers, a revival of purposeful cycle touring, and regular home and foreign news.
- Signed "Pomian", a survey contrasting Poland's strong track record — Łazarski beating world champion Jaap Meyer, and the Lange/Łazarski/Stankiewicz/Szymczyk team second in the Olympic team race — with its backward road racing, blamed on pre-war habits and the absence of a proper race calendar. Prescribes remedies copied from abroad: gears of 68–78 instead of the Polish 84–92, free-wheels, frames sized to the rider, two-minute tyre changes, eating from 40 minutes into a race, and 1000–1500 km of training as done by Wambst, Blanchonnet, Souchard, Suter and the Pélissier brothers.
- Wiktor Junosza traces the six-day race from the first individual event at Madison Square Garden in 1896, won by the Englishman Teddy Hale with 5073 km, through the American 12-hour rule that created the two-man Madison, to Alfred Goullet's seven New York victories and the 1915 record of 4450 km by Grenda and Hill. Closes with a report on the Chicago six-day of 25–31 October, won by Walthour and Fred Spencer with 1148 points and 3483 km, Wambst's first race as a professional ending in a crash.
- Report on the UCI's 43rd congress in Paris, attended by eleven European federations plus Argentina and the United States, where the French federation's motion to abolish the amateur world championships was thrown out by 76 votes to 24. Also settled: the Olympic track programme (1000 m sprint, 2000 m tandem, 4000 m team race, a kilometre record in place of the 50 km), world championships awarded to Milan 1926, Cologne 1927, Amsterdam 1928 and Belgium 1930, and Leon Breton elected president.
- Foreign results from January and February: the France–Germany amateur match at Dortmund's Westfalenhalle won by Blanchonnet and Galvaing, and the Grand Prix U.C.I. meeting at the Paris winter velodrome, where Faucheux beat Michard and Leene, Linart won the motor-paced races after Grassin's puncture and crash, and Francis Pélissier took the international cyclo-cross criterium over 20 km. Includes the Wrocław six-day, won after a mass crash and a disputed relay by Van Kempen and Feja, and the Chicago six-day won by Mac Namara and Walthour.
- Home news: Warsaw's winter training on the Dynasy wooden track and the coming attempt on Zygmunt Janociński's half-hour record of 17 km 470 m, the W.T.C. annual meeting dissolved on a technicality over late notices, and Starosta Okulicz's 1000 zł prize for a 100 km road race on 6 June. Also Łódź, where "Union" has imported roller training machines used best by Szmidt and Os. Miller; Kraków, where the Cyclists' and Motorists' Club elected Feliks Tyrkalski president; and Lwów, where Kazimierz Hemerling, editor of the 1890s annual "Koło", received an honorary diploma.
- Official communiqué of the Polish Cycling Union board: the cycling section of the workers' club "Legja" in Kraków is admitted as a category-F member at 30 zł a year, and licences will be refused to riders whose clubs are in arrears with 1925 subscriptions or have not returned the union questionnaire. It also announces the general meeting of 28 March and suspends the Piotrków Cyclists' Society indefinitely.