Vol 1, No 17
Articles in this issue
- The Editor asks that all communications, official or otherwise, reach him by Tuesday morning at the latest, since the paper's purpose is defeated if publication slips past Thursday, and invites racing members to send their own practical experience of training for racing and long-distance riding.
- On the adjourned application at the County Court, Northampton on the 17th, Mr. C. Becke argued from the 78th section of the Highway Act, 5 & 6 Wm. IV., cap. 50 that bicycles are carriages, the case being watched by Mr. Hutchings for the Bicycle Union; his Honour's view was unchanged, a case could not be stated because the verdict was already entered, and he refused a new trial, so all possibility of appeal is over and the next case must go to the magistrates.
- A full account of how Sir G. Jenkinson's amendment, first a compulsory loud whistle, then a bell AND whistle and a clear light after dark, was defeated. Mr. Theo. Godlee alerted the Union's solicitor Mr. Hutchings, Mr. Nairn wrote to Sir C. Dilke, and after a week of lobbying M.P.s, Sir H. Jackson, Q.C., member for Coventry, backed by Mr. Salomon of the Coventry Machinists Company, persuaded Mr. Sclater-Booth to make the clause general and have the Local Government Board frame a uniform model set of bye-laws.
- A bitter satire, provoked by the recent court decisions, on the “Complete Carter” now free to crush the ponderous Stassen or the delicate Carver with only “Died of contributory negligence” graven over the victim's bones, closing with an imagined Bicyclist's Obituary for 188… under the “Bicycle Nuisance Act in 1878.”
- “Mucker” starts at 3.40 a.m. and covers 72 miles cross-country in 8 hours 24 minutes with the wind astern: a penny to the one-booted pike-keeper below Marlow, eggs and bacon at the “Cross Keys” near Beaconsfield at 5.25 a.m., a warning to avoid the unrideable precipices on the five miles to Amersham, and stones washed three or four inches deep before Hertford by the storm of June 30th, with a table of distances.
- The second instalment of Palmer Dalton's tour with Buckler: firm roads through the New Forest and Lyndhurst, paddling in the Blackwater on a sprained ankle, tea at a cottage near Holmesley Station, the level spin to Bournemouth and the comfortable but dear “Exeter,” then Wimborne Minster, Blandford, Puddletown and Dorchester to the great view from Ridgeway Hill over Portland, the Chesil Bank and the turret ship Thunderer, ending at “Drew's Commercial Temperance Hotel,” Weymouth. To be continued.
- The first General Meet held in the North-East District succeeded despite roads torn up by a storm of unexampled severity: N.E. 6, N.W. 11, W. 3, S.W. 3 and S.E. 1 rode from Syborn's Corner through Whip's Cross, Woodford and High Beech to Epping, where twenty-five sat down to tea at the “Old Thatched House” arranged by Mr. Godlee; three miles beyond Waltham the road, lately under four feet of water, was “exactly similar to the beach at Brighton.”
- District Captain J. W. Alison announces a weekly evening meet at “Jack Straw's” at 7.15 p.m. from next Thursday, and that the Rickmansworth run will go via Pinner and Moor Park, reminding members of the facilities for bathing.
- District meets for July 20th (Upminster, Rickmansworth, Burnham Beeches, Westerham), July 27th (Ongar, Hatfield, Horseley Towers, Dorking, Sevenoaks), August 3rd (Harlow, Watford, Amersham, Dorking, Reigate) and August 10th (Hertford, Stoke Pogis, Virginia Water by Chertsey, Staines and Farningham).
- The Temple Bicycle Club's mile at Stamford Bridge on July 20th, handicapped by John Keen; the Joint Stock Banks' four miles and the Brighton Bicycle Club meeting on the 27th; the Stanley B.C.'s two miles at Alexandra Park on August 10th, handicapped by M. D. Rücker, jun.; and the Tower Hamlets meeting on the 17th.
- Five machines offered at two insertions for 1s.: J. F. Marchant's 58-in. Stassen with front-wheel brake at £12, H. R. Boyce's 52-inch “Special Challenge” with Carter brake, Gilbert F. Beck's cheap 56-inch racing “Humber,” a 54-inch Stassen with eccentric brake, leg rests, bag, oilcan and spanner at £12, and C. A. E. Pollock's 54½-inch Keen's Eclipse racer at £10.
- A. J. Bacon announces that a party will leave the Marble Arch at 5.45 a.m. on Saturday the 27th, and Central Croydon Station at 7 a.m., to attend the Southern Meet at Brighton, some of them returning to London by road the same day.
- Arthur H. Rolls, having trusted the club-list, was charged 3s. each for a very plain tea and 1s. for “apartments” at the “White Hart,” Guildford, though it is classed A; A. S. Ister sends a solution to the double acrostic of July 4th and queries clue 6; “Limited Income” protests that the two-shilling tea has been promoted to half-a-crown and the half-crown dinner to three and sixpence at way-side inns; E. H. Carr publicises the evening bathing at Keston Lakes, eight miles from Croydon. Also “The Last New Brake,” in which a boy's velveteen Scotch cap thrown at Welwyn jams in the hind fork and is holed by the tyre, and “C.”'s report that Sewell took two prizes at the Norwood Swimming Races against the amateur champion Davenport.
- Contributions must be addressed to the Editor at 35, Eastcheap, bear the author's name, be written on one side of the paper only and reach him by Tuesday morning; copies are 4d. at Goy's in Leadenhall Street, and non-members may subscribe for the year at 10s. 6d. post free.
- A one-line note: the double acrostic will be dealt with next week.