Author: Judith Hickson

10 January 2014

An old pair of wooden skis? Not what you’d expect…..

When I first started working at the National Museum, I felt as though I’d arrived in an Aladdin’s cave – a treasure trove of collections from which I could choose whatever I wanted to explore and to write about.

Uncategorised

8 November 2013

Taking it to the limit – the ‘extreme’ sport of six-day bicycle racing

It’s difficult for us today to imagine a cycling competition where, as The Mercury (Hobart) reported on 17 February 1897, ‘exhausted riders [were] lifted from and on to their wheels and carried to and from their quarters, their joints swollen and inflamed, barely able to see, with wandering mind, and only kept in a conscious condition by the efforts of trainers and physicians.’ The occasion referred to by the Mercury’s shocked and disapproving correspondent was a six-day bicycle...

Cycling