Vol 2, No 17
Articles in this issue
- At its meeting of the 9th instant the Committee elected five new members, among them Edward Lawrence Boyer of Highbury Park, Daniel Thomas Nops of Shepherd's Bush and Walter W. Northcott of Little Ealing. It also appointed Mr. Knight, of Eastcheap, as tailor to the Club, and voted that the expenses of the members who took the time at points along the road during the Bath Race be defrayed out of Club funds.
- An appeal for the Annual Race Meeting at Stamford Bridge on Saturday 21st June: every member is asked to sell all six of his tickets and is entitled to two free ladies' tickets. The Ladies' Challenge Prize will be run for for the first time, and men who have never raced are urged into the One Mile Club Handicap, in which long starts will be given.
- Hon. Sec. Herbert R. Boyce, of 35 Warrington Crescent, W., asks those members who have not yet returned their unsold tickets for the evening meeting, with payment for those disposed of, to do so at once.
- Report of the return match with Cambridge University Bicycle Club at Stamford Bridge, won by the London in every event: W. Wyndham beat O. P. Fisher by 20 yards in the mile and by two yards in the four miles, M. D. Rucker jun. beat J. W. Willink, and W. T. Thorn beat H. S. Clarke in the mile and F. G. Mayor by a few yards in a fiercely fought fifteen miles in 50min. 34 4-5sec. Tower's ill-health kept him out of the long race; about 200 passed the turnstiles, and some thirty men of both clubs dined afterwards at the Holborn Restaurant, where Darrell replied for Cambridge and Cornell of the Wanderers acted as judge.
- The closing instalment of Norman B. Morris's tour, covering the Sunday at Dol with its wooden houses, cathedral of St. Samson and the climb up Mount Dol; the 22-kilometre run back to St. Malo, a dip in the sea and dinner at the "Hotel de l'Union" at St. Servan; and a wet 80-mile ride home from Southampton after the South Western Railway demanded six shillings a machine. General notes follow on Breton macadam, hotel charges (déjeuner 2½ francs, bed 1 franc 50), Hachette's departmental maps, and the machines used, Koch's "Dickman", Jennings's "Premier" and the writer's 51-inch Stassen, the whole tour totalling 574 miles.
- A machine-by-machine examination of the bicycles left in the Club Room at the Club Depôt, Kew Green, after the Bath Race: a 58-inch "W. Keen" with treadles jammed immovably by grit and cones cut into strips, two "Carvers" whose registered front bearings had been packed with wadding and came through clean, a 56-inch "Timberlake" with an inch of shake in the hind wheel, a 48-inch "Stassen" and an "Eclipse" with leather guards. Moral: coned bearings on a muddy day, if not kept well oiled, are useless.
- The tabulated district meets, Top of Lea Bridge Road and Syborn's Corner for Ingatestone, "Jack Straw's Castle" for Essendon with tea at Salisbury Crest, Kew Green for Slough via Thorney Mill, the Griffin Hotel at Kingston and Central Croydon Station for Leatherhead, together with the Race Meeting on June 21st and a standing Wednesday evening run from Acton Church for the Western District.
- Rain spoiled every district's outing. Three N.E. men rode Walthamstow, Chingford Hatch and Woodford; seven N.W. men stuffed their clothes with newspaper on the way to the "Orange Tree" at Totteridge, 14 miles in all; four Western men and a visitor, Mr. Mourant, sheltered two and a half hours at the "Ballot Box" on Horsenden Hill while O. Thorn's chronically groggy hind wheel was put right by Mr. Law; St. John A. Ryan alone turned up at Kingston and ran to Ripley; and two S.E. men were drenched between Wickham and Beckenham.
- R. Gerald Trollope, Captain of the S.W. District, asks any member wishing to represent the district on the 21st inst. to send in his name as soon as possible, and promises to get up a trial race beforehand if more than three candidates come forward.
- The Defence Committee's circular is reprinted in full: for an additional subscription of one shilling a year, Bicycle Union members may draw on a fund to prosecute wanton assaults and gross breaches of the rules of the road, or to defend actions brought against them, with local representatives to be appointed around the country. Signed by Hon. Sec. H. E. Taylor, 86 London Wall, for a provisional committee drawn from the Surrey, Hornsey, Canonbury, Rovers, Civil Service, Temple, Brixton, Lombard and Pickwick clubs.
- Gossip paragraphs: the correspondent signing himself "Facilis Decensus" is thought to be a lawyer who has dropped the "Averni"; Shakespeare is proved a bicyclist out of Henry VIII; an agony-column appeal is made for news of A. Ogier Ward, gone to Edinburgh to study medicine; spectators at Stamford Bridge report ruined hats and hoarse throats after the fifteen miles; and Cortis is noted as having won £150 in prizes this year, £37 of it in a single week.
- Dates from June 14th to July 19th, including the Kingston B.C. handicap and five-mile scratch race at Surbiton, the Bicycle Union 5, 25 and 50 mile Championships, the London Bicycle Club Race Meeting at Stamford Bridge on June 21st, and meetings of the Druids, Pickwick, Lombard and Wanderers clubs.
- The letters column for this number, carrying a single contribution on the merits of brakes.
- H. Sharpe, of 80 Well Walk, Hampstead, argues that a rider who has learned his work should never use feet and brake together, and that the only proper use of a brake is to check a machine running feet-up at 15 or 20 miles an hour for cows, carts or turnings. Hind-wheel brakes skid and bring a cropper, Carter's is more dangerous still and its string will break, and lever brakes cannot be reached at speed; brakes worked by turning the handle, like Stassen's and Timberlake's, are the best. His advice is to have the best brake you can find and then hardly ever use it.