CTC Gazette, Vol 1912, No 1
Articles in this issue
- A full account of the Roads Improvement Association's achievements since 1886, including its successful campaign for the Road Board, dust suppression experiments, and advocacy for modern road construction methods.
- Details of the RIA's current programme, covering the establishment of regional centres, continued campaigning against dust, pressing for rolling of loose stones on the day of laying, and monitoring proposals affecting road users.
- Descriptions and prices of cycling accessories available from Brown Brothers, including the Marco Gas Lamp, Midnight Sun Oil Lamp, Halycon Bells, Bronko cleaning and repair equipment, and various other cycle fittings.
- An advertisement for the British-made New-Departure coaster brake hub, claimed to be used by 3.5 million cyclists, with endorsements from members on its safety and reliability.
- Members' classified advertisements for buying, selling, and exchanging cycles, accessories, and other items, restricted to CTC members.
- Announcement that the annual handbook is available at one shilling to members only, described as an essential vade mecum for all who tour the British Isles.
- The Secretary comments on the Club's lost straying-horse appeal (Jones and Another v. Lee, heard by Justices Hamilton and Bankes) and a similar case involving a girl named Ellis, warns members about railway cloak-room liability limits for stored bicycles, and reminds members of the 1912 subscription, the British Handbook, and the Club's Motor-Cycle Insurance Scheme with the Car and General Insurance Corporation.
- Details of the Club's insurance arrangements with the Ocean Accident Corporation for pedicyclists and the Car and General for motor-cyclists, covering accident, sickness, and machine theft.
- The editor reflects on the recent Olympia Show being dominated by motor-cycles at the expense of plain pedal cycles, discusses two adverse court rulings on straying animals and a Tadcaster tar-spraying skid case, and reports a War Office scheme (via Cycling's military correspondent) for a National Association of Cyclist Defenders and a rival N.C.U. London Centre "Utility Ride" round Greater London proposed by Mr. Jas. Blair.
- Full verbatim text of the King's Bench Divisional Court judgment (Justices Hamilton and Bankes, 24th November 1911) dismissing the C.T.C.-backed appeal of Jones and Another v. Lee, ruling that a landowner has no common-law duty to fence a quiet horse off the highway.
- Wallace E. Riche reports the Roads Improvement Association's campaign to remove obstructive railway advertisement boards at a blind corner in Shalford, Surrey, which prompted a new Surrey County Council by-law, and a special Council inquiry into complaints that tar-treated road surfaces are unduly slippery for horse traffic.
- Fred Horsfield reports on the Amateur Camping Club's 11th annual supper at Victoria Mansions chaired by Mr. D. B. L. Hopkins, describes his own wicker-bodied cycle trailer for touring with an infant daughter, and relays a novice camper's (Mr. A. T. V. Robinson's) account of a July touring circuit from Liphook to Basingstoke.
- F. T. Bidlake discusses chain-wheel and gear-ratio sizing, criticises fanciful gear-wheel designs such as the Humber and Rudge-Whitworth trademarks, argues for 26-inch over 28-inch wheels, and reports Marcel Planes's record-breaking year of century rides in a Cycling-organised competition, surpassing E. Hale's previous best of 313.
- C. Edwardes extols winter cycle-touring in the Lake District (Rydal Mere, Coniston Old Man, Buttermere), recalling John Ruskin's funeral procession witnessed on a wintry climb, and describes a January week's tour of Arran's snow-capped mountains and surprisingly mild-climate gardens.
- A miscellany column giving January lighting-up times, a "Some Vesuvians" anecdote of a train and mule-cart ascent of Vesuvius from Naples during an Italian cycling tour, and reader replies on touring Spain by rail, recommending hotels at Burgos, Madrid, Seville and Granada and Baedeker's guidebook.
- A. J. Heighway, a New Zealand journalist, opens a four-part account of a 4,000-mile cycle tour of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales on New Hudson "Tourist" machines, describing the England leg from Birmingham through Kenilworth, Warwick, Stratford-on-Avon, Exmoor, Lynmouth, Clovelly and Land's End to Torquay.
- Lena Oborne describes a two-week cycle-camping holiday with a friend around Killarney and County Kerry, camping near Killorglin, Cahirciveen, Valentia Island, Waterville and Derrynane and visiting the Gap of Dunloe, a trip inspired by T. H. Holding's published camping advice.
- W. F. Markwick promotes the Isle of Wight's mild "Undercliff" climate for winter cycling, describing routes through Ventnor, Steephill Cove, Blackgang and Shanklin Chines, and the Freshwater district's Tennyson Cross and Alum Bay.
- A round-up of continental touring-club news: the Touring Club de France's new Pyrenees frontier road and Paris cycle-path funding, Dutch and Belgian touring notes, Italian coverage of the Tripoli war and aeroplane trials at Rheims, and a described bicycle tour of Santander province in Spain.
- Rosalind and Beatrice Moss recount a fortnight's cycle tour of the Dauphiny with two French Touring Club friends, climbing to the Grande Chartreuse, Notre Dame de la Salette, the Col Bayard, Chateau Queyras, St. Véran and the Col Izoard.
- Mabel Richards advises on equipping a bicycle for all-weather riding (Bluemel dress guards, an acetylene lamp, a three-speed gear), tool-bag contents, ingenious parcel-carrying by two Dublin women cyclists, and the growing popularity of motor-cycling among women following the Olympia Show.
- Douglas Leechman details Olympia Show innovations omitted from his earlier report, including the Rudge's wider rear hub, several three-wheeled "sociable" runabouts (A.C., Morgan, Eric, Autotrix, Tyseley, Wall) and change-speed gear designs such as the Sturmey-Archer and Bowden hub gears, plus a review of "The Motor-Cycling Manual."
- A woman side-car passenger, signing herself "E.W.", critiques 1912 side-car body designs shown at Olympia, including canoe-shaped fronts that sacrifice luggage space, upright bodies that pool rainwater, and the lack of pockets, lockers or foot-warmers, with an editorial note on Brown Bros.' new exhaust-heated side-car warmer.
- Reader tips on touring practicalities, including carrying luggage in a rucksack rather than on the back carrier (illustrated by a sixteen-day Ardennes-Moselle-Rhone tandem tour), riding coatless in mild weather, and choosing carrier clamps and acetylene-lamp brackets.
- Reader letters including Herbert J. Peers's renewed call for the C.T.C. to promote a Road Traffic Regulation Bill, debate over an alphabetically-arranged British Road Book, objections to a proposed "British Touring Club" renaming, and a dispute over butt-ended and Rich inner tubes with the manufacturer's published reply.
- Minutes of the C.T.C. Council's December 1911 Oxford meeting, appointing Chief Consuls for numerous English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and overseas districts, and Finance, Rights and Privileges, and N.C.U. Conference committee reports covering the "Cycles as Luggage" and "Conveyance of Cycles" Bills.
- A round-up of December committee meetings and January 1912 annual general meetings across the C.T.C.'s District Associations, including Birmingham and Midland, Bristol and Gloucester, Glasgow, Leicestershire and Rutland, Liverpool, Manchester, Metropolitan, Nottingham and Derby, Sheffield, Southampton and West Riding.