December 1902
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CTC Gazette (December 1902). cyclearchive.com, https://cyclearchive.com/magazines/ctc-gazette/vol1902-12/
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Articles in this issue
- Opens on the new Postmaster-General and the Club's proposals for a magazine post and a Post Office system for collecting small sums, with a Daily Chronicle quip. Then the Cycle Shows (to be reported in January), the new Motor-Cycle Committee, the Black List of the month's casualties, the Glasgow tramway point-shifters and the Board of Trade's reply, a North Wales Chief Constable on hedge-clippings, the renewal of subscriptions and the R.I.A. half-crown, the J. K. Starley Memorial scholarship for Road Locomotion, and a recapitulation of the month's duties.
- Mildred Fletcher on Banstead in Surrey as a cycling centre: the birds (ring ouzel, shrike, golden-crested wren, skylark, missel thrush) and heath flowers, and short rides to Headley and Walton-on-the-Hill (Oyster Hill, the Mere Pond, Tadworth Court), Woodmansterne and Chipstead (its church and Sir Edward Banks's monument), Gatton, a former rotten borough, and Reigate Hill. Also Epsom Downs and Epsom, Burgh Heath, and longer rides to Reigate, Betchworth, Dorking, Box Hill, Leatherhead and Leith Hill; the Woolpack Inn garden is noted.
- F. T. Bidlake on the Raleigh three-speed hub, the gear developed from Pellant's and Reilly's notions through Sturmey, Archer, Reilly, Mills and Pellant: a normal gear with one higher and one lower ratio, a free-wheel ring round all three, and a thumb lever with a three-notch spiral. He sets its ratios of 56, 70 and 88 against the two-speed hub's gaps, the feel of changing gear on the road, and the hub fitted to a cross-framed Raleigh with rim brake and twist-grip. Closes by arguing that a cycle needs no rear light, its central lamp being enough to show it from behind.
- Douglas Leechman on the motor-cycles promised for the Shows: the 1903 Minerva motor, with a positively actuated inlet valve, decompression by lifting the exhaust valve, a straighter exhaust outlet, a planned spray carburettor and a casting of cylinder and head in one piece, about five pounds lighter for the same power; and the new-pattern Singer motor bicycle, its road wheel carried on one side, with a free wheel and pedal-starting through an epicyclic gear. He promises the Werner, Humber and Quadrant machines next month. Continues on p.10 with a note on petrol (specific gravity .680 at 60 degrees F.) and paraffin as a cheaper fuel.
- A. Candler, chairman of the Motor-Cycling Committee appointed by the Council, appeals for members' information. Reliability will come before speed: the Committee will recommend only machines it or members know to be first-class touring mounts. It plans tests on touring rather than speed, relies on members' reports of improvements, will compile a list of repairers and petrol places for Easter, and wants to know a buyer's hilliness, weight and trailer use. Also raised: the convertible motor-bicycle, trailers, the 15s. tax, the six-mile limit with a trailer, and railways that refuse to carry motor-cycles.
- C. W. Brown's third paper (Tyres III), running to p.14. The Scottish-de-Luxe detaches by a screwed wire with blocks and a handle (Figs 29-32), and the Scottish-Victor has a plain endless wire. Then the A.B. Velox (fabric, Dunlop pattern), the Midland A, B and C and British covers, the Liberty (a rim stud, with Featherweight and Wireless patterns), the Woodstock and Fleetwood with hooked edges, the beadless In-Equilibro, the Goodyear with its lattice wire tape, the Goodrich single-tube, the Hubbard Constrictor, which can be repaired off the rim, and the Warwick cover.
- W. Rees Jeffreys, honorary secretary, on the Roads Improvement Association's campaign for a government inquiry into highway administration. Prints the letter to A. J. Balfour setting out the case (suburban sprawl, trunk roads split among ten or twelve authorities, a departmental committee now and a Royal Commission later), and the circular to District Associations asking for reports on trunk roads, dangerous hills and loops for fast traffic. Also requests from the National Touring Association of Melbourne and from Martin Dodge of the Office of Public Road Inquiries, Washington, and the exchange of publications. Runs to the top of p.16, with his letter to Edward A. Bond of New York.
- Report of the annual meeting on 5 November 1902 at the Royal Avenue Hotel, Belfast, John Brown F.R.S. presiding: the executive's report of growing membership (the Belfast centre's 285 members, more than doubled in the year, and a new Cork centre formed on 24 January with over 170), steam-rolling and direct-labour gains in County Antrim, and the C.T.C.'s grant of £100 in four yearly instalments of £25 (Belfast £15 and Cork £10 this year). A pamphlet by Thomas Aitken, County Surveyor of Fifeshire, for rural councillors. Speeches on bad roads and the Lisburn Road, and a resolution by W. J. M'Millan, seconded by W. H. Alexander, against letting road repair to small contractors, carried. Officers elected.
- Constance Everett-Green on accidents to women cyclists through neglected nuts and screws (a gear-case cap, a foot-rest and a mudguard stay that jammed, all from bad adjustment at shops). On winter riding she advises warm hands and feet: change in a warm room, not a cold passage, and wear woollen gloves and gaiters to the elbow. On fixed and free wheels she prefers the free wheel but grants the fixed wheel's advantages for steering, and welcomes the Hub's second invention, an automatic free wheel on the high gear with a fixed low gear, which she has not tried.
- C. Edwardes on North Spain in May 1902. The Hendaye and Irun customs formalities (the deposit, the guia, the agent who recovered it) and the Guipuzcoan levy of 25 centimos a day; then the roads from San Sebastian through Cestona, Orio, Zarauz, Loyola, Azpeitia, Elgoibar, Eibar and Durango to Bilbao, with the mud of Castro-Urdiales, Laredo, Solares, Torrelavega and Cabezon. Then the Asturian coast: San Vicente de la Barquera, Unquera, Arenas, Cangas de Onis and Covadonga, and Infiesto, where rain beat him and he took the train to Oviedo, 24 miles off. Ends with the coast's wet weather and cheap lodgings, about four pesetas outside the towns.
- A. W. Rumney on misleading finger-posts. He cites the old Ditchling-Brighton road, a Wastwater board ('To Keswick, 19 m.') and the Warwickshire post at Long Compton that the Club and the local council set up. Then the Thirlmere road, which bypasses the old one: the county council and the Manchester water committee, which pays for upkeep, would not mark it, so the Club erected its own post at Wythburn: Keswick 9½ miles by Armboth, 8¾ by Wythburn and Thirlspot. The board has survived one tourist season.
- H. Elrington on riding the New Forest from Lyndhurst, which he recommends as the centre, with the Companion to the Road Book for detail. The ride to Cadnam, Stony Cross, Rufus Stone and Minstead comes first, then the Lymington-Cadnam road, Brockenhurst, Setley Common and Boldre, Sowley Pond, Abbey Walls and Beaulieu by Lady Cross and Beaulieu Heath. Mark Ash and Knightwood for deer, forest ponies and a charcoal-burner's hut, and a footpath to a wood beyond Alum Green. Warns against riding straight along the three great roads and against missing the forest's aspects. Ends with a long green glade that a bicycle can ride where walking is too swampy.
- Max Rittenberg's winter tour, begun a few days before Christmas from Bordeaux, to Mont-de-Marsan by the Bayonne road (Route Nationale No. 132) through the Landes: pine forest, resin, timber wagons and shepherds on stilts. Night at Liposthey, then Dax and Pau (where he sent his portmanteau by rail to Perpignan, luggage charges by Grande Vitesse), Lourdes and Bigorre (a blizzard and a wayside barn), Foix, the climb to Quillan, the Gorges of Pierre-Lys and Galamus and a descent of more than 25 miles to the Mediterranean. Closes with inns and expenses (within 30s. a week), the military gradients and advice to ride the Pyrenees in autumn.
- F. H. D.'s August day from Leenane in Connemara, by the road west: the Killary and Mweelrea, Bundorrhagha, the sheep fairs for the Glasgow market. Then Lough Fee, Benchoona and its water-horse legend, Lough Muck, a squalid cabin visited on the road, a funeral party near Salruck with its keeners and the custom of breaking clay pipes on the grave, the Atlantic sands, Lettergesh, Letterfrack under the Diamond Hill, the Dawros and the Kylemore valley, and the evening ride home.
- Letters from members, pp.31-42. Routes and books: the Conway-Sychnant pass directions, the highest British pass (Bwlch-y-Groes, against the Cumberland roads and Cross Fell), Cycling in the Alps, the French Road Book, Rides with an Object, the churches of Shefford and Winchfield, Bartholomew's North Wales map, touring notes on the Banbury road, Strathspey, touring outfits and the hotel discount. Mechanics and tyres: speed by pedal count, long cranks, Dunlop and Palmer tyres, Bowden and Darby brakes, the Dursley-Pedersen in the Alps, the Quadrant chainless, friction losses, front forks, trailers, the calcium lamp, metropolitan roads, the oiled road, motor cycling, the hoop nuisance, the Starley Fund and the decline in membership.
- Three notices. The renewal of subscriptions, due 1 January, with the renewal form enclosed and the Year Book for 1903 to be ordered. The General Election: a contest in eleven of the twenty-one divisions, voting papers to reach headquarters by 8 December, addresses on pp.544-546, and a walk-over where candidates do not exceed vacancies. A Cheshire meeting at the Birkenhead Y.M.C.A. on 6 December to consider the Liverpool District Association's application for west Cheshire, signed by John Naylor, R. Holland Owen and F. C. E. Perkins.
- The Extraordinary General Meeting held at the Grand Hotel, Manchester, on 7 November, W. Kendall Burnett presiding, with a small attendance. Its business was to confirm the resolutions passed in London on 10 October to reduce the size of the Council. The chairman moved the eleven amendments to the Articles (Representative Chief Consuls, a new Article 26, the Council's make-up and the timing of the General Meeting), J. T. Masser seconded, and H. Croydon Roberts asked whether it was called only to confirm the London changes. It was carried nem. con. and a vote of thanks to the chairman followed.
- Replies in short paragraphs to members' questions: which machines and tyres to choose on a given list, whether a spring frame makes pneumatics superfluous, and whether the two-speed Hub gear or the Archer-Sturmey three-speed suits a lady or a light rider. Also advice on a cement, a Garrard two-speed gear with a band brake, a Westwood tyre cement at about 1s. 3d., and a letter about a machine to be made the subject of an action at law, so not printed.
- The schedule of nominations for the Annual Election of Representative Councillors under the new scheme, division by division: England (Kent, Lancashire, Middlesex, Surrey, Yorkshire and the rest), Wales, Scotland, Ireland, British Colonies and India, and the foreign countries. For each candidate it gives membership, occupation, proposer, seconder and address, with marks for present councillors and for contests in the divisions. The table on p.45, headed 'Councillors-Nominations', completes the schedule.
- Candidates' addresses to the electors, by county and division. Kent (George Watson). Lancashire (W. P. Gilbertson; J. D. Sutcliffe). Middlesex (W. Rees Jeffreys; H. Revell Reynolds; R. F. Hughes; A. W. Rumney). Surrey (C. E. Dawson; Arthur Candler; Octavius Beatty). Yorkshire (E. W. Forward; W. Hutchinson; A. H. Marriner). The Cumberland, Durham and Northumberland group (H. Webster; J. J. S. Heslop). Bedford, Cambridge and the eastern counties (J. Grafton Milne; Evelyn Bright; Henry J. Mortimer). Berks, Hants and Sussex (R. Bazett). Lanark (Alex. Hay; William M. Collins). Grouped Counties of Ireland (J. G. Digges).
- Proceedings of the monthly meeting of 8 November 1902 at the Grand Hotel, Manchester, Kendall Burnett in the chair. Resolutions 189 to 208 confirm the interim reports, appoint a seven-member Motor-Cycling Committee under A. Candler, regret G. E. Stanley's retirement, and fix the next meeting at Birmingham on 13 December. Reports of committees: Rights and Privileges (thorns on highways in Devon, Petworth and Cornwall, a Birmingham char-a-banc, a Rhymney Railway claim, glass at Merstham, Herefordshire danger-board vandals fined £11); Foreign and Colonial Touring (Swiss motor-cycle passports, the Oporto club agreement, the Foreign Handbook at half a crown); the R.I.A. section (the inquiry, road reports, finger-posts: 400 wanted, 89 promised); the Geneva L.I.A.T. Congress.
- Reports of District Association committee meetings: Antrim and Down (a conversazione proposed), Glasgow (tramway point-shifters petition, broken glass, ruts and watering), Leicestershire (dangerous hills, Lutterworth boards, Kibworth sign-post), Liverpool (fourteen Seacombe railway-tour routes, Lancashire membership down to 4,602), the Lothians (Beaufort Road accident, danger boards, Greenend traps), Manchester (Palatine Road, lecture, support for J. D. Sutcliffe and R. Holland Owen) and the Metropolitan (A. Candler made Hon. Sec. and F. J. W. Whipple Assistant Hon. Sec. on A. M. White's resignation; a C.T.C. night at the Crystal Palace). Continues on p.53 with Nottinghamshire (Masser adopted; hill boards), Preston and North Lancashire (Gilbertson adopted), Warwickshire and Birmingham (Derrington nominated; Pennell's Over the Alps lecture on 13 December) and Yorkshire West Riding (Marriner's nomination; Wonnacott's lecture).
- Two member notices seeking companions. W. Tate of Perpignan wants a companion aged 35 to 50 for easy touring in Spain, Algeria, Sicily, Italy and the south of France, with moderate expenses. Member No. 18,797, c/o the Editor, wants a companion for a three or four months' tour of the south of France and northern Italy early in the new year, with moderate expenses and pace.
- The Club's notices to members. The pamphlet The C.T.C. at Home and Abroad, free on a post card. Rights and Privileges (members who are assaulted or wronged should write to the district association, which lists its honorary secretaries). The Touring Bureau and Library, and the British and Irish Road Book volumes at shillings a volume (21s. the set) Bartholomew's two-mile maps, specially revised by the Club, with contour colouring. The Companion to the Road Book. The British and Irish Handbook, the Year Book and Diary at 1s., the Foreign Handbook (2s. 6d., ready 1 March), the Continental Road Book, the Paris itineraries at 1d., the Badge, name-plates at 2s., and the customs arrangements for members' cycles.
- The monthly list of candidates for membership, with a notice that the Club's subscription is five shillings a year and the entrance fee one shilling, with life and commuted terms, and the rules on election under Articles 6 and 7. The list runs by county, from Berkshire to Yorkshire, then Scotland, Ireland, British Colonies, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France and the United States, with names, addresses and proposers.