CTC Gazette, Vol 1899, No 6
Articles in this issue
- Previews the International League of Touring Associations' first Congress (Hotel Cecil reception and banquet, 6-7 June) and the guests expected; reprints the C.T.C.'s diplomatic exchange with the Foreign Office over a misleading Press notice on French cycling permits, and notes a Leamington doctor fined for footway riding.
- Official programme for the International Touring Congress (6-10 June, including the Crystal Palace fireworks and the Coventry factory visits) and A. W. Rumney's itinerary for the August Commemorative Dinner and tour from Harrogate; also covers Club Road Book, Companion to the Road Book, Handbook and Continental Road Book sales, new District Associations for Cheshire and Preston, and the Chief Consular vacancy for King's County.
- Lord Advocate A. Graham Murray announces a committee (Kendall Burnett, O. H. Beatty, Professor Boys, J. K. Starley and himself) to raise a testimonial marking Secretary E. R. Shipton's service in the Club's 21st year, subscriptions capped at 2s. 6d. each.
- Minutes of the Council meeting at the Bude Hotel, Exeter, 6 May 1899, chaired by O. H. Beatty, including resolutions on Life Membership for Lord Iveagh and S. Neumann, a Roads Improvement Association grant of £100, the new Warwickshire and Birmingham District Association, and the appended Rights and Privileges Committee report covering cases such as Morgan v. Ward and Williams v. the Rover Cycle Co.
- June and July run schedules and meeting reports from the Antrim and Down, Derry and Donegal, Dublin, Leicestershire, Lothians and Northumberland and Durham District Associations, including the founding meeting for Derry and Donegal at Londonderry Guildhall.
- A. R. Quinton's illustrated Part II, Cork to Galway, describing the ride via Macroom, Gougane Barra, the Pass of Keimaneigh and Glengarriff to Killarney, the Gap of Dunloe excursion, and on through Kilrush, Kilkee, Lisdoonvarna and the Cliffs of Moher to a tyre failure near Ballyvaughan that ended in a jaunting-car rescue into Galway.
- E. S. Mellows's illustrated account of a Loire valley tour from St. Nazaire and Nantes through Angers, Saumur, Chinon, Azay-le-Rideau, Langeais, Chenonceaux, Amboise, Chaumont and Blois to Chambord, contrasting cyclists with the dust-caked motorists now sharing the roads.
- F. T. Bidlake rebuts Archibald Sharp's back-pedalling and muscular-storage theory, arguing from a joint test ride that a free wheel's coasting beats back-pedalling for both rest and control, and questions Sharp's claimed equivalence between back-pedalling and a rim brake.
- Advises June as the best touring month, discusses summer clothing including cotton coats, Ruskin homespun knickerbockers and open-work cycling corsets from the Nottingham Corset Company and Dr. Lahmann, and answers a reader's query about the Veeder trip cyclometer.
- Archibald Sharp continues his serial on frame design, comparing Pedersen, Cantilever, Fleet Telescopic and Raleigh frames, then covers front-frame and steering-head construction including plate, arched and tubular crowns on B.S.A., Raleigh and Rambler machines.
- Douglas Leechman reports further experience with free wheels and Smith's Friction Wheel Brake, describes a persistent slow puncture traced to grit inside an inner tube, and replies to Mr. McCaw on chain-tension calculations.
- Volume III instalment on the Derbyshire main routes, tracing Route 36 Nottingham to Matlock via Codnor, Crich and Lea Hurst, Route 39 Derby to Mansfield via Dale Abbey and Annesley Park, Route 40 Derby to Sheffield, and Route 42 Derby to Whaley Bridge via Duffield, Belper, Matlock, Haddon Hall, Bakewell and Buxton.
- An unnamed Society of Public Analysts member assesses acetylene lamps as a supplement to C. W. Brown's earlier articles, weighing cost against paraffin, the shadow-distortion problems of a low travelling light, carbide's safe handling as a non-explosive solid, and railway companies' reluctance to carry loaded lamps.
- Latin verses from the Rome periodical Vox Urbis by Maurus Ricci celebrating the Roman girl cyclist, given with an English verse translation.
- Notes on Pitman's Spanish Tourist's Vade-Mecum, a Commons Preservation Society footpath map of the Barnet and Elstree district, and the Essex Handbook of cricket, cycling, football and athletic clubs.
- C. W. Brown tests the new Dunlop-Welch tyre, the Desideratum automatic back-pedalling brake, the Sunbeam F.B. second-grade machine, the Veeder Trip Cyclometer, Lohmann's tyre-actuated bell, Wapshare's wool-lined single-tube tyre and the Royal County cycle stand.
- A. W. Rumney recounts cycle touring's beginnings from Kirkpatrick Macmillan's 1842 ride, through the 1878 Harrogate meeting at which Holding and Cotterell founded the Bicycle Touring Club, its growth under Secretaries Welford, Auty and Shipton, and the introduction of the Consul system devised by Mr. Penrose.
- Members' notices seeking touring companions for destinations including France, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, the Pyrenees, Brittany and the Rhine Valley during June to September 1899.
- Member letters covering the Club's coming-of-age history from Edward Perkin, touring routes through Normandy and Warwickshire, a defence of Arklow's amenities against A. R. Quinton's article, caution-board placement, the Bowden Brake delivery delays, free wheels, long cranks and high gears, the use of the mounting step, and the Regina v. Broady case.
- The editor's replies to members on machine recommendations, gear and frame sizing, the Rowley Puncture Locater, tropical tyres and the postal distribution of the Gazette to family members.
- The June 1899 roll of new membership candidates arranged by English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and foreign counties and countries, from Bedfordshire through to the United States of America.
- Rules governing Life Membership under Article 8 and the February 1888 General Meeting resolutions, followed by the June 1899 roll, recording Capt. Le F. Barton of the Bass Rock Hotel, North Berwick, elected 1897.