Vol 2, No 23
Articles in this issue
- A leader reporting that the promised learned papers, "The Calculus of the Cycle, with riders on the Maxima and Minima of Hill-mounting," "A Treatise on the Tendon Achilles" and an Oxford correspondent's "Aesthetics of the Cycle", have all fallen through, leaving the Treasurer putting on the black cap over the Book of Rules. The Editor urges defaulters to confess their poverty to the kindly Keeper of the Cash Box, and warns the solvent against playing "the amateur Marwood" to those less lucky.
- Minutes of the meeting of the 21st instant: the resignations of Messrs. Whitehorn, Bennett and Middleton accepted, Mr. Bainbrigge's name erased for non-payment of entrance fee and subscription, and the Treasurer calling attention to Rule 16, the "Massacre of the Innocents" (or guilty ones) has commenced.
- Rucker and Thorn rode from Surbiton through Leatherhead and Dorking to tea at Capel; Rucker went on alone for Brighton without a lamp, meeting abuse at Horsham and caps and sticks thrown at Henfield. Making for the station at racing pace in the dark he dismounted just in time and cleared three unlit stone steps on foot, prompting a call for a strong letter to the railway company.
- "Florizel" combines business with pleasure, taking train to Wareham and the "Red Lion," then riding west over flint roads by Wool Station to Winfrith to see a friend's Australian blue gum trees. He rides home in stages through Wimborne, Ringwood, the loose sandy New Forest, Romsey (where his M.I.P. bag broke), Winchester, Alton and the Hog's Back to Guildford, 66½ miles in all, the saving in railway fare and fly-hire more than paying for a new spring.
- "Rusticus" argues that riders hush up their falls when they should study the art of coming a cropper, since the man who has fallen often falls without hurting himself while the over-cautious rider meets the bad unexpected fall. Indifference to croppers, he claims, is what separates the "pretty" rider who walks up the steps into his saddle from the man condemned to his baker's dozen of ridiculous little hops.
- District meets for the coming Saturdays: N.E. from Lea Bridge Road and Syborn's Corner for Hoddesdon and Epping; N.W. from "Jack Straw's Castle" via Rowley Green and Shenley to meet the W. District at St. Alban's; W. from Acton Church for St. Alban's via Watford; S.W. from the "Griffin," Kingston, for Chobham via Sunbury and Chertsey Bridge; and S.E. from Central Croydon for Westerham and East Grinstead.
- Six N.E. men rode a flooded Essex to Ongar, joking about the new lakes and sea-beach found in the middle of the county; five N.W. men reached Rickmansworth through Moor Park's fallow deer, swam in the Colne and tea'd at the "Swan" for 2s.; the S.W. district explains an unofficial change of run, then describes a fine 32-mile evening by Wallington and Banstead to Walton-on-the-Hill; and E. C. Koch reports riding the Western evening run alone from Acton Church.
- Ernest C. Koch, a former resident of Baden-Baden and Frankfurt, supplements "Delta's" tour: he recommends the Kehl–Rastadt road past Neuweier with its Schloss full of Franco-Prussian relics, the Hotel Hollande at Baden-Baden, and a route from Carlsruhe by Heidelberg, Darmstadt, Frankfurt and Wiesbaden to Mainz in preference to Worms and Oppenheim. He recalls envying a Baden friend's 56-in. nickel-plated "Ariel" in the Black Forest.
- Full heat-by-heat return of the Wanderers' annual meeting at Stamford Bridge with Wellington's band playing: C. D. Vesey (Surrey) took the open mile handicap final from Tyler and Shaw; John Keen's exhibition mile of 3min. 1⅕sec. failed to beat the ground record and was slower than Cortis's heat; and East won the ten miles scratch in 31min. 20sec. from Cortis and Ainslie, all three falling heavily after passing the post.
- "Eavesdropper" names the Rhine Eight, Doctor and Pem Coleman, Kinder, Marchant, Thorn, Trollope, Rucker and Freddie Williams, lunching at the "King's Head," Fenchurch Street before starting, on 58-in. and 56-in. machines. He compares Keen's 3min. 1¼sec. exhibition mile with Cortis's 2min. 51¼sec., and reports the S.E. District Captain slipping a treadle and striking his head with a noise like a turnip smashing against a wall.
- Three coming meetings: the Rovers B.C. at Alexandra Palace on July 26, the Stanley B.C. open mile there on August 23, and the Beckenham B.C. on September 30.
- "X" asks why the Committee will not enforce Rule 16 against members three months in arrears, with a postscript on the printer's devil mangling a Virgil quotation (answered by "Minerva Diabolus"). Norman B. Morris of Oak Hill House, Hampstead, seeks companions for a Pyrenees tour after August and notes the General Steam Navigation Co.'s new bicycle tariff, 2s. 6d. to Ostend, Boulogne or Havre, free to Margate and Ramsgate; and Stephen P. Smith describes the "infernal" inferior-oolite road from Oxford through Deddington and Banbury Cross to Warwick, 45 miles via Southam and Leamington.