Vol 2, No 24
Articles in this issue
- A mock-solemn leader claiming credit for its earlier weather forecast and describing the L.B.C.G.'s new observatory, a cage up ten frail wooden steps above Minerva's workshop, to be staffed by unpaid subscribers press-ganged from the room below, released only when F.G. dispenses a receipt, and otherwise handed over to the Club Shylock. It closes on the fatal collision in a bicycle race at Coventry, where Mr. Bird died after three days' agony, and asks what precautions could lessen such racing risks.
- "Jack" describes the crawl of the South Western Railway beyond Southampton West, the guard humming Moody and Sankey hymn tunes on the station railings and two Anglican clergymen quarrelling over "the great old man of Oriel." He arrives at the capital of Kukladia, Bournemouth, where the bicyclist is no cad upon castors but the one who tolerates, and overhears a lady say "No, thank you, I'll go home on the Tri." To be continued.
- "Goethe" traces a machine's three-year life: the first year of polishing every speck and careful oiling, the second of rough outside oiling, the third of repainting, "a repainted bicycle is a sort of sham", and then the lumber-room, the auction that fetched 44s., or service as a learner's machine, "a sort of cabhorsedom of 'cycles." He notes that riders, unlike engine-drivers and sailors, have not yet learned to call their machines "she."
- A parody of Byron's "Destruction of Sennacherib" by "Plunger": "The Treasurer came down like a wolf on the fold, / And loudly demanded his over-due gold," running through the ledger's clean leaves, the demon of dearth, and the clothiers heading the list of creditors with the laundress at the tail.
- Theodore Godlee states publicly that he is not the Treasurer of the London Bicycle Club, and warns that he intends in future to appropriate to his own use all cheques or Post Office Orders drawn to his order under that incorrect title.
- A thin week's table: the N.E. from Lea Bridge Road and Syborn's Corner for Epping, the N.W. from "Jack Straw's Castle" for Aldenham (15 miles), the S.W. from the "Griffin," Kingston, for Burnham Beeches, and the S.E. from Central Croydon for East Grinstead, with the standing Wednesday evening runs from Acton Church and Central Croydon.
- Nine N.W. men rode from "Jack Straw's Castle" to St. Albans, picking up four more at Tally Ho! Corner and riding the deep water-splash at the foot of Rowley Green Hill; five Western men met them there after losing their way at Watford, and all adjourned to the swimming bath before an ill-managed tea at the "Bell." The S.W. rode 31 miles to the "Sun" at Chobham (Ryan having ridden 70 miles from Ashford to attend), and four S.E. men took the Selsdon Road to Westerham.
- Evening-run reports: the Western district's first fine Wednesday in a month drew only two members plus Mr. Atkinson and three friends for 12 miles by Folly Lane, Osterley Park and Brentford Butts, with a hope of larger musters on July 30th and August 6th; the S.E. voted the weather too cold for bathing and ran to Banstead Downs instead.
- "Soffler" recalls 2 September 1875 in Caterham valley as an unattached rider in a large straw hat, check knickerbockers and a 15lb. knapsack, breakfasting at the "Railway Hotel," East Grinstead. Between Maresfield and Uckfield a timber-carriage team swung across the road, he took the ditch and then the hedge, and had to carry a 63lb. wreck three-quarters of a mile before a miller gave him a lift back.
- "Pat" recounts catching bicycle mania at fourteen, "the mania without the bicycle", and being refused by a father who had already bought him a five-ton cutter and an aunt whose poodle died biting the front wheel of a "Stassen." He sells the ill-named "Liza Jane" for five pounds to a youthful acquaintance, whereupon she promptly sinks under her new owner. To be continued.
- "Eavesdropper's Boy" reports the Rhine Eight signalled from Gravesend with a cabin to themselves aboard the "Teal"; that R. V. Jennings of the N.W. district left his business at Durban to serve with the Naval Brigade in Zululand under Captain Richards; that Mr. Ainslie is recovering rapidly; and praise for Mr. Lane, captain of the Wimborne Minster B.C.
- "X" answers "Croppers" with his own spills, run over by a coal cart near the Elephant and Castle, and an acrobatic somersault over a block of stone that left his "Challenge" falling on him and his arm in a sling, and asks whether any Accident Insurance Company could survive if all its 'cyclists rode that way, suggesting "Rusticus" start a class in falling.
- "Irish Challenge" writes on returning from the United States that the great distances, excellent railways and extremes of heat and cold ruin the roads and leave the few struggling clubs no chance outside the large cities. He encloses New York Herald cuttings and promises that John Bull's bicycling boys of the L.B.C. will know how to receive the American rider should he cross.
- The enclosed New York Herald telegrams following Wentworth Rollins from New York towards Saratoga: caught in six thunderstorms near Sing Sing, he abandoned his all-steel machine under a tree for fear of lightning, took the cars to Poughkeepsie, astonished hundreds by riding a steep hill at lightning speed, upset in a rut entering Rhinebeck, and finally had to train from Albany to Saratoga through flooded roads.