Vol 2, No 26
Articles in this issue
- Theo. Godlee's account of riding with Alfred Fowler through the night of 2 August against a north-east gale, a wasted mile of hill after wrongly entering Bishop's Stortford, tea at Stanstead, and a retreat before forked lightning to the "Greyhound" at Chesterford, where an old drover cheerfully recounted heading bicyclists off with flocks of sheep. Beaten by the wind past one in the morning, the pair took shelter by forcing a shutter on Newmarket Heath and passed the storm in the jockeys' weighing room, found Newmarket's roads under water, helped work the fire engine, ground 20 miles of flint and sand into the "Bell" at Thetford in 2hr. 50min., and after a milkless, teapotless tea at the Attleborough "New Inn" took train to Cromer, joining J. Williams jun., Jolly and C. C. Fitch.
- The same two machines are still offered: a 49-in. "Carver" with hollow spokes and double ball bearings, all bright and in perfect condition, at £11 from W. R. Sewell of Priory Road, Kilburn, whose owner is unable to ride; and a 52-in. painted "Stassen" with patent eccentric brake and foot rests from Edgar W. James of Adelaide Road.
- "A Member" rode from London to Dunstable by Barnet and St. Albans, where a Stockwell B.C. friend carried him off to a farm near Leighton Buzzard, and a millstream at second-floor level flooded the basement during a thunderstorm, turning them out of bed at 1.30 a.m. to spend two hours fishing tables, chairs and bottles out of the water. Next day the roads were unrideable shingle broken by quarter-mile floods so chalky the surface was invisible, and the writer rolled into two and a half feet of it and waded the rest; twenty miles was the whole day's work.
- The tabulated meets: Lea Bridge Road and Syborn's Corner for Waltham Abbey and Abridge; "Jack Straw's Castle" for Essendon and "Salisbury Crest"; Kew Green for Black Park and Cobham Station; the "Griffin," Kingston, sharp at 4.30 for a circular run; Acton Church for Halliford; and Central Croydon Station for Riverhead and Horley, with the Blackheath division for Dartford. Wednesday evening runs continue at 6.30 from Acton Church and 7 p.m. from Central Croydon.
- N.E.: a thin party through Woodford and Buckhurst Hill to a noisy "Thatched House" at Epping, home by Theydon Bois, Abridge and Chigwell. N.W.: Palmer Dalton's fourteen rode to Aldenham over Bittace, Highwood and Barnet Gate hills and explored an airless underground vault near High Cross by the light of a "Salisbury," then went on to the "Essex Arms," Watford, Broad pedalling one-legged on a broken treadle-pin, 34 miles. Western: six made a circular run to Leatherhead via Esher, passing the Surrey Club's 50-mile race on the new Surbiton track, and took tea at the "Swan" at 2s. a head before C. E. Law fell on the scandalous macadam beyond Kew Bridge; the two S.W. men joined them there, one riding on with a Western man as far as Southsea Pier.
- A. H. Koch, E. C. Koch and O. Thorn take the south-western roads from Richmond via Ripley, Guildford and the Hog's Back to Alton's "Swan" (37½ miles), delayed all trip by Thorn's left crank working loose until a blacksmith at East Meon cut him a new key. They visit East Meon church and the tombstone of Ann Earwaker, cross the Itchen ferry to Southampton, its roads cut up by the new tramways, and sleep at the "White Horse," Romsey; A. H. Koch returns by Stockbridge, Leckford, Wherwell and Longparish to Basingstoke, 180 miles in all. An unheaded postscript by E. C. Koch describes fishing in private water at Horsebridge and a slow ride home through Andover, Whitchurch and a cropper at Overton, hampered by a bad knee.
- W. A. Smith describes a former engineer at Petersfield who, having lost the use of his legs, built himself a two-hundredweight manu-motive machine driven by a small right-hand handle through a pair of cog-wheels of about 3 in. and 15 in. giving a five-to-one gain in power. The rider claims to work it up every hill in the neighbourhood, including the old Roman road over Stonor Hill, and dismisses Butser Hill as mere rising ground, though he often has trouble coming down slowly enough with the wind behind him. Enquiries should be made of Mr. Harvey of the "Dolphin Inn."
- The serial continues from last week. George Hugh Temple, still taken for the long-awaited cousin Hugh, weighs his position overnight and resolves to go through with it; Colonel Dale's rector Mr. Carr marries him to Ivy at eleven in a room banked with Jessie's flowers, sixteen hours after he first saw her. The revulsion is fatal, Ivy haemorrhages, and dies in his arms after taking leave of her father and sister, leaving Jessie to lead him out into the garden. To be continued.
- "Eavesdropper" reports that Cromer is becoming a regular L.B.C. meeting-place, that a three-week novice rode nearly 60 miles from Acton to Maidenhead and back by the lanes, and that Francis Godlee, the Treasurer, leaves on Saturday for a tour round the world, though not on his "Stassen." The bulk of the column is a rebuttal of the newspaper reports of the Brighton spill: Wyndham is back in town with nothing worse than a sprained arm and two fingers, Kyle was at Lillie Bridge the following Saturday, and the three doctors present certainly issued no talk of fractured skulls and broken ribs. It closes with word that Cortis will retire from the path after this month, that neither Ainslie nor East will race again, and that an explosion over handicapping is imminent.
- Two events remain listed: 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.
- A single letter from "Man in the Midlands" on how road-racing is managed in his part of the country: at Winslow the course ran from the market place out to a bridge and back along the main road, started and finished through the principal thoroughfare on a day crowded by a flower show, a canary and poultry show and a fair, with handicaps in minutes and seconds, one man receiving 8 minutes in a race under 6 miles, and riders sprinting downhill through the narrow street among carriages and pedestrians. It is such exhibitions, he argues, that turn magistrates against all road races, the Club's harmless Bath trial included.