CTC Gazette, Vol 1922, No 8
Articles in this issue
- The editorial column criticises the Duke of Leinster's headline-grabbing drive from London to Aberdeen averaging over 40 m.p.h., with bursts of 75, proposes a differentiated speed limit of 30 m.p.h. by day and 20 by night, and responds to a letter from the Secretary of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis asking cyclists to stop riding several abreast and occupying the crown of the road.
- A sharp rebuttal of Colonel Sir Alan H. Burgoyne, M.P.'s article in The Motor, which condemned "cads on castors" while boasting of his own Klaxon use and a spat with a coroneted car's driver; the writer notes the inconsistency of an M.P. who claims no hostility to cyclists yet wants a "high percentage" of them removed by legislation.
- The gossip column discusses a motoring journal's complaint that the Automobile Association is favouring commercial "heavies" over private motorists, recounts parting from "Wayfarer" into a westerly gale near the Great Ouse on his new lightweight, and mocks a proposed scheme to tax bicycles by weight, working out what "Aunt Jane" would owe on her carrier bicycle.
- John Urry describes a stormy July tour through Wales, riding the Tanat Pass from Shrewsbury to Bala past the Llanrhaidr waterfall and a wind-lashed Bala Lake, and the flooded Pistyll Cain cataract near Dolgelley; he also replies to a critic, "C.W.C.", over his earlier remarks on cyclists' and motorists' road manners.
- C. G. Harper describes the six-foot "White Lady" milestone on the Portsmouth Road at the foot of Esher Hill, the nearby Orleans Arms named for Louis Philippe (whose escape boots are displayed at the Bear Inn), and a lost 1654 milestone-cum-upping-block recently rediscovered built into a barn wall at Wandsworth.
- A detailed defence of the coroner, Mr A. M. M. Forbes, against misreporting of his remarks after a fatal head-on collision between a car and two motor cyclists near Ponders End on 21 June, and a rebuttal of Viscount Curzon's parliamentary question wrongly blaming the cyclists' absent rear light, countered in the Commons by the Club's own M.P., Mr W. G. Howard Gritten.
- A contributor signed "F. W." argues that a fixed wheel gives a rider greater command of the machine than a free wheel, especially in close club-run formation, and that "the machine seems a part of the rider" rather than the other way round.
- A camping couple recount a fortnight's 570-mile tent tour to the edge of Dartmoor via Haywards Heath, Petworth, Salisbury, Sherborne and Colyton, camping for three nights beside a farmhouse built in 1570 and bathing each morning in the adjoining river.
- Announces Mr Walter West of the Bank of British West Africa, Tangier, as winner of the "Why am I a member of the C.T.C.?" postcard competition, quotes dozens of members' replies, and reprints a rhyming entry from a Kent consul about C.T.C. handbooks, teas and D.A. runs.
- The first instalment of a personal survey of half a dozen tandems the writer has owned, detailing coaster-hub failures (one seizing and snapping its spindle after under 600 miles), three Dursley-Pedersen three-speed hubs, and the relative merits of a Raleigh cross-frame and an old Mohawk-pattern diamond frame.
- Lighting-up times and moon phases for August are followed by notes on the Lambert Arms Inn at Aston Rowant near Stokenchurch and the threatened elm avenue on the Newmarket-Thetford road; the Queries section carries a request for a coastal cycling route from Aberystwyth to Llangollen, and replies give detailed directions from London to Swanage and hotel recommendations at Dieppe, Arras and Ypres.
- Reprints the Club's letter of protest to the Home Secretary over the Duke of Leinster's £3,000 wager drive from London to Aberdeen in 14¾ hours at up to 75 m.p.h., and the Home Office's non-committal reply following a parliamentary question from Viscount Curzon.
- News items including the closure of the Old Wyche Road at Malvern to motor vehicles, a new cyclists-only road from Glencoe to Kinlochleven, a Yorkshire Post writer's praise of the C.T.C.'s hotel lists over those of the R.A.C. and A.A., and a full report of the Yorkshire (West Riding) D.A.'s 24-hour ride completed in heavy rain and gale-force wind.
- Robert Barker's lyrical account of a solo Sunday ride from his Hertfordshire home to a hilltop over Haslingfield overlooking Cambridge, where he picnics and counts village church spires across the Cambridgeshire plain.
- Round-up including the Lothians and Peebles D.A.'s joint meet at Moffat with the Glasgow and Northumberland D.A.s, the detachment of Fife into its own new D.A., the Liverpool D.A.'s all-night ride from Chester to Bala in heavy rain, the 150-strong annual D.A. meet at Oxford's Magdalen Bridge, and the Metropolitan D.A.'s 203-mile 24-hour ride to Bath and back.
- Correspondence opens with New Scotland Yard's letter asking cyclists not to ride abreast or hold the crown of the road, followed by letters on detachable air-tubes, automatic speed governors for cars, and a heated exchange over the 20 m.p.h. speed limit; later pages carry a Pembrokeshire touring recommendation, a query on whether Stratford-upon-Avon stood on a Roman road, and a personal reply from Alfred Watkins defending his "Early British Trackways" theory reviewed the previous month.
- Short reader notes including a spring seat-pillar recommended as a cure for broken spokes, praise for the Gazette from Tyneside members, a description of an obsolete tricycle with rack-and-pinion auxiliary hand propulsion, and a satisfied reader's thanks for advice on a Western Highlands tour.
- Minutes of the Council's quarterly meeting at York on 8 July, which approved formation of the new Fife D.A. and asked the Cyclists' War Memorial trustees to organise an annual commemoration service, plus Rights and Privileges Committee reports on settled claims including £700 for a member run down at Bagshot and £135 for one hit near Hoddesdon.
- The regular multi-page August runs list giving meeting points and tea-house destinations for D.A. sections across Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leicestershire, Liverpool and Yorkshire.
- The month's roll of new Ordinary, Family and Juvenile membership candidates by county, followed by candidates for Affiliated Membership from clubs including Southgate C.C., Old Ealonians C.C. and Batchelors C.C.