CTC Gazette, Vol 1914, No 3
Articles in this issue
- Reminds members that unpaid five-shilling subscriptions incur a late fee after this month, announces the new British and Continental Handbooks and Easter tours to Paris, Brussels and Bruges, and praises the Touring Club de France's efforts to preserve local customs alongside a note on the Car & General Insurance Corporation's 1913 results.
- By 'The Wanderer': reviews J. S. Fletcher's Yorkshire novel featuring the quaintly-dressed cyclist musician Haydn Smith, and Ardern Beaman's 'Travels without Baedeker', recounting his journey from Bombay to Budapest via Jerusalem on forty-one pounds, including a comic mishap in a Cairo cafe.
- F. T. Bidlake discusses variable gears on tricycles and the Vernon-Blake system, describes Mr R. Lister's double-sprocket Sturmey-Archer conversion, reviews an Imperial Rover roadster from the New Rover Cycle Co., and praises inverted-lever wired brakes fitted to his Raleigh on tours in North Yorkshire and Exmoor.
- Notice of the AGM at the Great Central Hotel on 13 March 1914 with motions on Road Board sign-posting and curbing motor speeds; the Council's annual report records membership of 15,474, legal defence cases including a Surbiton tramway fatality, and A. W. Rumney's resignation as Editor in favour of J. T. Lightwood and W. S. Burke, plus the audited Statement of Accounts for 1913.
- Includes a first-person account of riding from Blois to the ruined castle of Lavardin in the Loir valley, plus reader queries on touring Perthshire via Pitlochry and Glencoe, Sweden and Russia, the Ardennes and Sicily, and replies describing a Stelvio Pass route via Bregenz, the Arlberg and the Bernina and Splugen passes.
- M. Adeline Cooke describes a touring headquarters at Fishguard, taking in Llanwnda church (associated with Giraldus Cambrensis), the French invasion site at Strumble Head, the coves of Dinas and Newport with its cromlech, Nevern's St Brynach's Stone, and a climb of Mynydd Preseli from Rosebush station.
- By M. F. J.: a season-ticket cycling tour of South-West and West Belgium visiting the castles of Bouillon and Laroche in the Ardennes, with the legend of the Count de Namur's tournament, the flat farmland around Tirlemont and Jodoigne, and praise for cheap, clean Belgian hotels.
- A touring narrative through the Lincolnshire marshes from Louth via Saltfleetby and Saltfleet, visiting an old Manor House and identifying a farmhouse near Saltfleet as the genuine 'Locksley Hall' associated with Tennyson's poem.
- J. Ll. Warden Page describes a cycling and rail crossing of Devon from Barnstaple through Lynton, Ilfracombe and Mortehoe, past Yes Tor and Dartmoor's tors, through Lydford and Tavistock (with its Drake associations) to Plymouth.
- A. W. Rumney continues his Riviera touring account, cycling from Cannes through St Raphael, Frejus, St Tropez, Hyeres and Toulon to Marseilles against the mistral, then begins a 'Riviera Revisited' tandem tour discussing road conditions on the new Esterel road.
- Douglas Leechman discusses lightweight auxiliary engines such as the Auto-wheel and J.E.S. in reply to Mr G. C. Hindley, describes Frank Hucklebridge's Auto-wheel-fitted Singer tricycle tested past Grim's Dyke near Harrow, and notes Mr C. M. Linley's device for silencing valve-tappet noise.
- Captain Currie's news items cover the AGM date, a fatal cycling accident at Herne Hill, a proposed motor racing track for Sydney, R. D. F. Paul's election as President of the Pickwick Bicycle Club, and a joint Northern/Western/South-Western Sections meet at Pinner addressed by R. H. Woods.
- Mabel Richards advises on spring-cleaning and polishing a bicycle after winter storage, gives tips on inspecting and chalking tyres, discusses bell-ringing etiquette toward pedestrians, and compares side-slip risk on dropped versus diamond-frame bicycles.
- Details of the Club's organised Easter tours to Paris, Brussels and Bruges, the subscription-renewal deadline printed in English, French and German, the proposed extension of the Lothians District Association to include Peebles, and a list of counties needing new Chief Consuls including Herefordshire, Glamorgan and Inverness-shire.
- A practical guide to making and projecting lantern slides, covering illuminants such as limelight and Nernst lamps, choice of slow versus fast lantern plates, developers, and masking and binding the finished slides.
- Minutes of the Council's January meeting at York under Chairman Lt.-Col. C. H. L. Baskervyle, recording a grant of £25 to the Liverpool District Association, settlement of the Jockel v. Stenhouse case, and committee reports including a taxi-cab collision claim near Hyde Park Corner.
- Letters cover broken spokes on Roman rims, complaints about glaring motor headlights blinding cyclists at night, Austrian coinage, experience with Rich detachable inner tubes, finding cheap tramp-steamer passages to the Mediterranean, Sturmey-Archer hub durability over 18,600 miles, and a member still cycling in his eighties after starting at fifty.
- Reports from the Birmingham and Midland, Bristol and Gloucestershire, Glasgow, Leicestershire and Rutland, Liverpool, Lothians, Manchester, Metropolitan, Northumberland and Durham, Nottingham and Derby, Preston and North Lancashire, Sheffield, and Southampton District Associations, covering committee elections, lectures and their March runs programmes.