CTC Gazette, Vol 1914, No 6
Articles in this issue
- The editor announces the Club's £50 reward for information identifying the motor-car involved in the Lewisham cycling fatality, publicises a motor-cyclists' rally at Stratford-on-Avon on 4th July, and reviews the C.T.C.'s uneasy relationship with the Roads Improvement Association over its motoring-heavy funding.
- Captain Cuttle discusses the danger of pillion motor-cycle passengers, quotes Chief Inspector Halford of the City Police praising London's expert cyclists, relays Mr J. Urry's complaint about riders neglecting basic bicycle maintenance, and reports the Club's successful prosecution of a Pickfords motor-van driver who ran down a member on Putney Bridge.
- Announces prizes of 20s., 10s. and 5s. for the three best photographs of scenery or wayside objects taken on a cycle tour, entries limited to three per competitor and due at the Club Office by 31st August 1914.
- Mabel Richards urges women cyclists to picnic more, recounting a girl who cycles seven miles to her office and takes picnic breakfasts en route, discusses whether women should enter motor-cycle reliability trials, warns Auto-Wheel owners against poor lubrication, and recommends tricycles for elderly riders.
- F. T. condemns the dazzling glare of over-bright motor headlamps, describes Henry Sturmey's anti-glare cap-visor sold by Bramco Ltd of Coventry, argues the case for unadjustable high-class ball bearings (the new D.W.F. type), and sets out when a cyclist may accept a friendly motor-cyclist's tow or pace without impropriety.
- Full schedule for the public 24-hour ride starting from Edgware at 7 p.m. on Saturday 20th June, via Hockliffe, Weedon, Meriden, Lichfield, Coventry, Daventry, Stony Stratford and Dunstable, with meal stops and an 18s. entrance fee; entries to Mr Nevill Whall.
- Includes June lighting-up times and moon phases, notes on Switzerland's new Brigue-Disentis railway and the liquidation of the Monte Generoso line, a reply about a reader's article on 'A Ride in Western Algeria', and members' queries and replies covering the Cotswolds, Devon and Cornwall, Brittany, Normandy, the Lake District, Norway, Brussels, Tintagel and St Davids.
- G. E. Case Morris describes the gipsy encampments around Horsham, Crawley, East Grinstead, Dorking and Newdigate in Surrey and Sussex, their basket-making livelihood, their evasive dealings with local police on either side of the county border, and tips for photographing them unobtrusively.
- A. W. Rumney concludes his tandem tour of Italy, describing Arenzara and Albenga, the Touring Club Italiano's profile road-books, fourteen punctures in 700 miles of stony roads, the scarcity of women cyclists, and detailed cycling notes on Lakes Garda, Como, Lugano and Maggiore.
- No. 6759 concludes a Cevennes-Auvergne tour through the Dourbie valley, the Grotte de Dargilan, the Tarn gorge, Ste Enimie, Florac and Langogne, and on to Le Puy, Issoire, St Nectaire, Murols and Clermont-Ferrand, taking in the Puy de Dôme and the Gothic Cathedral.
- T. H. Holding, C.T.C., recounts a cycle-camping tour of southern Ireland from Athlone via Kenmare, the Cloonee Loughs, the Bantry peninsula and Glengarriff to Bandon, Cork, Middleton, Youghal, Dungarvan, Waterford and Wexford, camping in fields and farmyards along the way.
- 'The Wanderer' tours Teesdale's waterfalls, including High Force (quoting Wesley's Journal and Scott's 'Rokeby'), Cauldron Snout, the village of Cotherstone, Barnard Castle and the ruins of Egleston Abbey.
- No. 11389 distinguishes 'quarter', 'half' and 'whole' holidays before describing his own: a fortnight as a paying guest with the Borain family in Lille, sightseeing at Ghent, Tournai, Commines and Ypres, and observing French social customs of handshaking and cesspool sewage collection.
- R. H. M. reflects on the pleasure of stopping at an unnamed village near Hastings on the south coast, attending its old parish church without ever learning the place's name, and deliberately preserving that anonymity.
- Report of the Council meeting at Edinburgh, chaired by Lt.-Col. C. H. L. Baskerville: appointment of Mr G. Bullock as Chief Consul for Worcestershire, the £50 Lewisham reward resolution, delegate arrangements for the forthcoming L.I.A.T. Congress, and committee reports on Finance, Rights and Privileges and the R.I.A.
- Douglas Lechman, M.I.A.E., recounts a slipped mudguard clip that shredded his rear tyre and an exhaust-lifter cable failure near Woodford, details a route from Hampstead to Burnham-on-Crouch, and reviews the O.K. Junior motor-bicycle and recent B.S.A. trial successes including the London to Land's End trial.
- Lists the Club's organised summer tours to the Rhine (Hotel Goethe, Bingen), the Swiss Alps (Hotel Brisen, Ober-Rickenbach) and Ostend, plus the 1914 British and Continental Handbooks, Chief Consular vacancies in Herefordshire and several Welsh, Scottish and Irish counties, and the Club's insurance schemes for cyclists, Auto-Wheelists and motor-cyclists.
- 'Wayfarer' comments on the Budget's provision for national road funding, Lord Montagu's remarks at the Roads Improvement Association meeting that cyclists give motorists too little room, the Kilmarnock District Committee's plan to let motor traffic roll in new road metal, and the defeat of the Sunday Closing Bill.
- Seventeenth in the series, advising tourists to cultivate rapid judgement of worthwhile photographic subjects, warning against slavishly copying picture-postcard views, and suggesting postcards as a guide to scouting better vantage points.
- A comic verse reprinted from The New Witness, credited to G. K. Chesterton, spinning mock legends involving Guy of Warwick, Robin Goodfellow and Sir Lancelot to explain why English roads wind rather than run straight, ending each verse in the fictional town of Roundabout.
- Members' letters cover the mechanics of bicycle chain-and-gear leverage, camping without a tent, praise for the Dursley-Pedersen bicycle's hammock saddle, bell effectiveness, the Veeder cyclometer, aluminium rims, a new railway concession for Auto-Wheelists, and a complaint about hedge removal on the Leatherhead Road.
- Meeting and run reports from the Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Lothians and Peebles, Manchester, Metropolitan, Nottingham and Derby, Preston, Sheffield, Southampton, West Riding and proposed Lincolnshire District Associations, including arrangements for the Ashbourne inter-association meet on 20-21 June.