CTC Gazette, Vol 1899, No 8
Articles in this issue
- Previews the Majority Dinner and Tour at Harrogate (11-14 August) with its Council meeting and 100-strong touring party; criticises Midlothian County Council's refusal to extend universal lighting bye-laws to slow-moving farm vehicles despite a Lothians District Association deputation; and reports the Queensferry (Dee) Bridge toll reduced to twopence single after years of C.T.C. lobbying, quoting Gladstone's 1897 opening speech.
- Consular vacancies for Londonderry and new Cheshire and Metropolitan District Associations announced by R. Holland Owen and Archer M. White; notes on the Rights and Privileges Committee and the newly established Touring Bureau and Library; and sales notices for the British and Irish and Continental Road Books, the Companion to the Road Book, the Handbook, Customs arrangements abroad and the Belgian cycle-passport deposit.
- Minutes of the 8 July Council meeting at Dublin's Metropole Hotel chaired by W. Kendall Burnett: new Chief Consuls appointed for King's County, Austria-Hungary and Burma; the Ireland Road Book committee reports 410 routes nearly checked; a thank-you letter from foreign delegates to the International Touring Congress praises J. K. Starley's Coventry hospitality; and the appended Rights and Privileges report covers the Barmouth speed-limit notices, the Falmouth Pier toll dispute and a London cabman fined for obscene language after a tandem near-miss.
- Lord Advocate A. Graham Murray announces a committee of 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.
- August run schedules and meeting reports from the Lancashire and Cheshire (Liverpool Section's dispute over the closing of Sefton Park drives), Manchester, Leicestershire (Mowmacre Hill danger board), Lothians (deputation to Midlothian County Council on Universal Lights bye-laws), Northumberland and Durham (Lambton Park concession secured by James Turnbull), Notts, Warwickshire and Birmingham (sympathy resolution after the Hay Mills accident) and West Riding District Associations.
- A. W. Rumney's practical sightseeing notes for the Commemoration Tour route from Ripon (Fountains Abbey, Studley Royal) through Wensleydale, Ingleborough Cave and Levens Hall into the Lake District, warning that the Buttermere round is arduous and giving ticket prices for members joining the party at Kirkby Lonsdale or Grange-over-Sands.
- F. T. Bidlake disputes R. E. Crompton's Cycle Engineers' Institute lecture advocating long cranks and high gears, recounting a non-competitive ride together from Edgware via Berkhamsted and Woburn to Hitchin during which Crompton, not Bidlake, was overcome by hunger and fatigue, undermining Crompton's nerve-waste theory.
- Volume III's Derbyshire main routes concluded: Derby to Ashbourne via Mackworth and Kirk Langley, the Via Gellia Valley route to Cromford and on to Chesterfield, Ashbourne to Sheffield through Dovedale and Beresford Dale past Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton's fishing house, and Chesterfield to Whaley Bridge via the plague village of Eyam and Chapel-en-le-Frith.
- Douglas Leechman reports on riding a fixed-gear machine after his free wheel, reducing his Humber tandem's gear for easier hill-climbing, testing the Rowley Puncture Locater on a cut air-tube, and trialling a detachable tube joint sealed with treacle or soft soap.
- A Society of Public Analysts member's second instalment explains why pure acetylene is not genuinely explosive outside compression or high heat, dismisses the copper-acetylide and phosphoretted-hydrogen scares, and sets out safe generator and burner practice for cyclists' lamps, including never sealing a lamp while carbide is still decomposing.
- C. W. Brown defends chain gearing against 'Quadrant' chainless correspondents, examines Messrs. T. Cooke & Sons' new eccentric chain adjustment, and reviews the Rowley Puncture Locater, Lohmann's 'Radical' enamel remover, the Ross Courtney valve and Three-in-One oil.
- Constance Everett-Green advises lady tourists to have their machines thoroughly overhauled by a trusted local workman rather than a large depot before an August holiday, gives a checklist covering chain, bearings, spokes, tyres and repair outfit, and reviews White's 'Reliable Hat Holder'.
- Archibald Sharp begins his chapter on chain driving gear, tracing the evolution from suspension-bridge link chains through the block and roller-chain types (Appleby, Garrard, Renold) to the Remington, Tacagni and Barry's lock-linked designs, and works through the geometry of tooth form and why finer-pitch chains run more quietly.
- Douglas Leechman continues his report on the Cordingley motor show at the Islington Agricultural Hall, covering the Bégot & Mazurie 'Elan', the Lanchester (praised by judge Professor C. V. Boys), electric carriages with hinged folding steering-bars, the Bettis wind-motor bicycle he test-rode, Lawson's motor safety bicycle, and Allard & Co.'s motor tricycles which lapped a rival firm's machine at a Coventry race meeting.
- Members' notices seeking touring companions for destinations including Switzerland and the Italian Lakes, Scotland's Trossachs and Loch Lomond, the South of Ireland, Iceland, the Rhine and Moselle valleys, and France via Bordeaux and the Loire Valley; C. L. Freeston seeks a fellow member to share his tandem on the Majority Tour.
- Member letters covering touring-centre recommendations (Leamington, Monmouth), Customs delays on the Southampton-Havre route, the C.T.C. hotel discount system, corrections to Mr. Lang's Companion to the Road Book article, weather-planning advice for Scottish and Continental tours, complaints and praise for the Bowden Brake and Esmond saddle, and a running debate over the Quadrant Chainless cycle's noise and long cranks versus high gears.
- The editor's replies to members on machine recommendations for various weights and budgets, gear and tyre sizing for older and heavier riders, free-wheel device reliability, candle lamps and the Bowden Brake's superiority over rim brakes.
- The August 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 August 1899 roll recording T. W. Bushill of Bubbenhall, Kenilworth (elected April 1897), A. M. Smith and the Rev. J. Wood.