Vol 2, No 25
Articles in this issue
- A leading article on the crop of broken collar-bones and fractured skulls on the racing path, arguing the fault lies with incomplete racing rules rather than with the Brighton course authorities, too many men on the path at once, no boating-style rule keeping each rider to his own water, physically unfit men allowed to start, and bystanders pressing close enough to distract half-dead riders. It closes on the sight of "our own Wyndham" carried off the ground with a fractured skull, calling it a question of "manliness v. manslaughter."
- The tabulated August meets for the five districts: top of Lea Bridge Road and Syborn's Corner for Abridge, Epping ("Thatched House") and Waltham Abbey; "Jack Straw's Castle" for Aldenham; Kew Green for a 26-mile circular run and for Black Park; the "Griffin," Kingston, for Stoke D'Abernon via Esher and Fairmile; and Central Croydon Station for Ockham, Riverhead and Horley, with the Blackheath division for Otford and Dartford. The Western district runs every Wednesday at 6.30 from Acton Church and the S.E. from Central Croydon at 7 p.m.
- District reports: the N.E. mustered an unusually creditable eight for Chingford Hill and Waltham Abbey, taking tea nine strong at the "Salisbury Arms," Hoddesdon, with A. Fowler nearly unseating the man behind him by two involuntary dismounts; the N.W. left "Jack Straw's" for Enfield, growing to ten at Tally Ho! corner and taking tea at the "George Inn"; and five S.W. men rode from Kingston through Teddington, Feltham and Colnbrook to Slough, where the "White Hart" gave a good tea for 1s. 3d.
- Western district: a solitary member waited half an hour on the Acton churchyard wall before riding alone through Willesden, Neasden and Kingsbury; "J. W. L." blames the change of nominal start from 7 o'clock to 6.30 for the poor summer attendance and proposes Harlesden Green as a rendezvous more convenient to North-Western members. In the S.E., six men left Central Croydon at 7 p.m. to bathe at Keston, whose clear, weedless, sand-and-stone pond the writer thinks too little used.
- D. T. Nops's account of a wet fortnight's tour: Harfleur and dinner at the "Cheval Blanc," a night at Yvetôt, Rouen with its incombustible iron flèche and the tombs of Rollo, the Duke of Bedford and the casket holding Richard Cœur-de-Lion's heart, a forced halt at La Feuillie while the village blacksmith mended a broken handle, the cattle fair at Gournay, Beauvais, where Madame Vigneron tried to short-change them by half a Napoleon, Compiègne and Soissons, ending with fifteen miles of unrideable pavé walked from Berry-au-Bac into Rheims at one in the morning. An editorial footnote rebukes his sneer at the priests of Compiègne, who nursed wounded soldiers under fire in the German war.
- "Soup-Squares" describes a July ride with D. Nops and E. Hindley from a cheap but unclean night at the "Bell," St. Albans, by lane to Hemel Hempstead, Chesham (one nearly perpendicular hill with a surface like a beach) and Amersham, then over good roads to High Wycombe, where a Touring Club notice drew them to a 2s. 6d. lunch at the "Red Lion" and the run of the hotel's fruit garden. Home by Loudwater, Cookham, tea at Tapley's in Maidenhead and the Bath road, 61½ miles.
- "Rusticus" scolds L.B.C. members who cheerfully pay for their own private paper but withhold the copy that would keep it alive, likening the Gazette to a small child fed alternately on dry bread and sweets and left to live on air between. He imagines the penitent member ransacking dictionaries, lexicons and Maunder's Treasury with his whole family to concoct a single acrostic, then rising next morning conscious of duty done.
- The opening instalment of a serial signed "Mouse." Travelling from King's Cross to York to inspect a tumble-down house and six hundred a year left him by an uncle, the narrator hands a veiled fellow-passenger from the train and is calmly driven off to Belrose as though expected, mistaken for his cousin Hugh of the Indian Civil. Jessie warns him on the way that her sister Ivy is dying; Ivy greets him with six years of pent-up devotion and produces the marriage licence her father has bought. To be continued.
- A route article from 11, Hamilton Road urging clubmen bound south-west to turn aside at Wareham (capital cheap lunch at the "Black Bear") for the four miles past the clay pits and the pointed summit of Creechbarrow to Corfe Castle, putting up 'cycles at the "Ship Inn" and reading the Parliamentarians' powder damage, a tilted outer tower, a gateway split and slipped bodily downhill, and the hangman's notched stone above its pit. It then picks the northern Downs road of the three routes to Swanage, warning of a precipitous descent and a lurking gate below the farm buildings, and recommends Tilly's Whim caves, the quarries, and the "Victoria" and "Ship" hotels.
- J. Convers Keynes lists two events: the Stanley B.C.'s open one mile at the Alexandra Palace on 23 August, and the Beckenham B.C. meeting at Beckenham on 30 September.
- For sale, a 49-in. "Carver" with hollow spokes and double ball bearings, all bright, at £11 from W. R. Sewell of Priory Road, Kilburn, whose owner can no longer ride, and a 52-in. painted "Stassen" with patent eccentric brake and foot rests from Edgar W. James of Adelaide Road. Scott Stokes commends Mr. Heath of the Wimborne Minster Bicycle Club as a companion for a fortnight's south-coast tour starting from Poole or Bournemouth, and covers for the 1878 number remain to be had at Darling's, 35, Eastcheap.