Historian Denis Setka is on the trail of Australia's last-century cycling champions, thanks to the nation's newspapers.

"I've become almost a de facto historian of Australian newspapers as a result of spending the last five years searching newspaper archives for results, articles and images relating to the last 130 or so years of cycling history," he says.

But there are still holes in his research for what the historian will become 'The Book' on the history of Australian championship cycling.

As the project draws to a conclusion, he's looking for the photo archives of several defunct newspapers including (Brisbane) Telegraph, (Adelaide) News, (Perth) Daily News, (Warrnambool) Star, Melbourne's Australasian/Australasian Post and Argus.

War photos from the Argus archive were donated to Victorian State Library but Setka says he can't find sporting collection... and he's also looking for the (Geelong) Industrial Herald and (Broken Hill) Barrier Miner.

"I am looking for images of particular cyclists competing at certain championships and have targeted local newspapers of the various host towns and cities where the respective newspapers' own photographers would have been present," he says. "I am after either high-quality prints or original negatives. Merely reproducing images from hard copies of the newspapers themselves is not an option."

Email Denis Setka if you can assist.