Whilst recovering the history of the ISDT, sometimes from oblivion, much of what happened prior to the war is no longer accessible via living memory. Most of the pre-war racers and the event supporters have sadly left our company over the last 10-30 years. Whilst we may still have those copies of the old magazines ‘the Motor Cycle‘ and ‘Motor Cycling‘ neither are published any longer and so its a case of trawling old archives and eBay auctions to find any references to the ISDT which is often fraught with difficulty and significant cost. These magazines tell us the story from the enthusiasts point of view but it’s also clear the International was a major sporting man familiar with many people with little active interest in the events and it is intersting to see how it was perceived then by the man in the street to compare to the sports relative anonymity today. A surprisingly great source for this kind of material is the daily national and regional newspapers of the time.

image – scanned from the Courier – Mail, from Brisbane Queensland Australia 10th May 1937 ISDT 1937

the image of the cycling contraption is described in its caption as this: FAMILY CVCLE.— An unusual machine, devised by a resident of Kent, England, to solve the transport problem for five people.

Continue reading →