Vol 2, No 27
Articles in this issue
- The first instalment of the "Rhine Eight" narrative, Dr. Coleman, G. P. Coleman, J. Kinder, J. F. Marchant, M. D. Rucker jun., W. T. Thorn jun., R. G. Trollope and F. M. Williams, five of them past their G.M. degree, who crossed for scenery and mild exercise rather than mileage. After beef and bitter at the "King's Head," Fenchurch Street, the machines, the Doctor's plated 57-in. "Humber," a plated 58-in. "Rudge," Marchant's great clumsy light-blue "Stassen," a new "W. Keen" painted to resemble a hearse and Trollope's lop-sided "John Keen", were stripped of treadles and lashed aboard the "Teal" at St. Katharine Wharf. Quoits, a cock-fighting tournament and a hosed sea-water shower-bath filled the passage; at Antwerp a Rubens-obsessed guide charged a shilling a head, and hours were then wasted hunting the head custom-house officer because the machines had never been cleared, before the party caught the evening train to Brussels. To be continued.
- "Goethe" reviews what the 1878–79 session did for bicyclists. The machine is named only once in the official records, Viscount Templetown's return of 7 March on metropolitan street accidents, which credited bicycles with 18 of the 3,253 accidents in the Metropolitan Police District and 5 of the 619 in the City, a ludicrously satisfactory result given the fabulous number of riders. The only motion arising, for more street refuges, was lost; the Highways Act scare in the bicycling press proved to be nothing but a "Highway Accounts Returns" Bill; but the President of the Local Government Board has now promised Mr. Clare Read a general amendment of the highway law next year, which may find the Bicycle Union some work.
- A South-Eastern member, tempted by the weekly accounts in the Gazette (and by a bottle of champagne shared with a friend), joins an N.W. run. They miss the Barnet train, go round by Enfield and Potter's Bar to Essendon, and find a coach-house full of machines but no owners, a yokel reports "a lot o' chaps with breeches" bathing a mile downstream, then return to two tables of members at tea. The writer sleeps at a Walton inn for 2s. 6d., bed and substantial breakfast included, and rides home next day through washed-out lanes to Welwyn, Potter's Bar and Barnet, finding Muswell Hill a disappointment and riding down it on a 58-inch by back-treadling alone.
- "The Bishop of Pork Fat" rides from Ongar to Eardisley in Herefordshire on a 54-in. "Humber" weighing 52 lb. with baggage, tormented throughout by a stray hind wheel whose felloe was too small for the tyre, mended at a mill with copper wire, a packing needle and two pairs of pincers. Highlights are the "Rose and Crown" at Tring, where dinner, bed, breakfast and tub came to 7s. 7d.; a wet crossing of the oolite from Lechlade through Cirencester to Birdlip Hill, which he thinks no man and machine have ridden together; the "Spread Eagle" at Gloucester; and a hot lunch with attendance and beer at the "Mitre," Hereford, for 2s. 152 miles in all at under 8½ miles an hour, and two lessons: never start with any part of the machine untried, and never put a stray hind wheel into your own pet beast for the sake of different bearings.
- The table is built round Saturday's general meet at Ewell, N.E. from Lea Bridge Road at 3 p.m. via "Jack Straw's Castle" and Kew, N.W. from "Jack Straw's" at 4, W. from Kew Green at 4 via Cobham St., S.W. from Kew Green at 5, and S.E. from Central Croydon at 4 for a circular run. Later dates take the districts to Chigwell Row, Brentwood and Harlow, to Elstree via Tally Ho Corner and Barnet Gate, and to Halliford from Acton Church, with the standing Wednesday evening runs at 6.30 from Acton Church and 7 p.m. from Central Croydon.
- Captain M. D. Rucker jun. sets out the arrangements for the all-district meet at Ewell, timing each district's start so that they converge, with the Blackheath division riding direct from its usual place. If fine, tea will be laid in the secluded garden of the "Glynn Arms," kept for the Club's exclusive use; machines may be left at the Club depôt, the "Coach and Horses," Kew; and a member will probably take a photograph. As it is the first time this season that the northerners have run into the southern districts, a large southern turnout is hoped for.
- N.E.: eight out on the 16th, a general dismount at Chingford Hill, hills still showing the marks of the storm of the 2nd, and tea at the "New Inn," Waltham Abbey, where only one man would join Webster's bathe (the married men were wanted at home and the District Captain doesn't bathe); Theo. Godlee is announced as District Captain's substitute to the end of the season. N.W.: eleven rode via Tally Ho! Corner and Barnet hill, ridden by all, to Essendon, swam in the Lea a mile over the fields, and took tea at the "Salisbury Crest" where Rucker and Marchant arrived full of stories of the Eight's Rhine tour; home by lamplight at 10.30, 33 miles. Western: five went by Gunnersbury Lane, Hanwell, Southall and Thorney Mill to Iver, where Mr. Marcham's small clean inn opposite the church gave tea at 1s. 4d. and the bar parlour held portraits of the Club's President and of H. L. Cortis; Smith, Thorn and Nops took a wrong turn in the dusk at Crawford Bridge and ended up at Southall.
- Two members leave Barnet for Aylesbury by St. Albans, are driven into the one inn at Berkhampstead not full by lightning ahead, and wake to find townspeople pumping out their flooded houses with the fire-engines and a huge tree split top to bottom near Tring. Beyond Aylesbury they lose their way to High Wycombe, and at a flood by the "Red Lion" the writer, told he could get through by keeping to the side, rode off a wall into six feet of water, an immersion he reports in a parody of Macaulay's Horatius, ending the evening in the waiter's clothes and both riders in screams of laughter.
- J. Conyers Keynes of 11, Hamilton Road prints a translation of a German newspaper cutting sent by a relative: eight "tree-long" young Englishmen arrived from Bingen on their iron two-wheeled horses, put up at the "Rhine" Hotel and set out after dinner for Coblenz with a wager against a passing steamer, only for one of the "sportsmen," having cut capers along the Rhine Alley and ridden the extreme edge of the quay, to go over the wall by the Mühlbad without damage. A local poet's verses follow, on the coachman whose one brown horse is outstripped by England and on the girls calling the rider a heavenly fellow.
- "Eavesdropper" reports the S.E. Colossus and Pat toiling up Box Hill after a picnic party and coming to grief pushing one another down it; Alison as good as any road book, able to say where the roads ran 40 years ago; "Mouse" contracted with the Editor to supply enough copy to fill every page still vacant after Monday night; and Cortis's 5 miles less 130 yards at Birmingham in 14min. 40sec., with 5min. 52sec. for two miles and 11min. 56sec. for four. Also Rucker's spring out of an arm-chair already occupied by a tabby cat, Stassen's forthcoming sub-40 lb. machine with ball bearings to both wheels, hollow forks and a Stanley head, the naming of "The Bell" at Stanstead, a rebuke to "Mouse" for using the Gazette to promote Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister, and the return of Muller and Wilson from Normandy.
- A 56-inch "Timberlake," just thoroughly put in order, at £9 from F. M. W. of Dingwall Road, Croydon. Theodore Godlee undertakes to account for all moneys forwarded to him on the Treasurer's behalf during his absence from England; regret is expressed that the old contributor "Rusticus" has met with a severe bicycling accident in Sussex; and W. A. Smith invites company for an early start to Harting on the 24th, with introductions to the scenery round Haslemere.
- A correspondent encloses a local-paper report of an assault committed on him. At the Epsom Petty Sessions Thomas Brindle, alias George Johnson, of Ewell was charged with assaulting the clerk Langridge and doing 20s. damage to his bicycle: lying in the road on the hill from Cheam into Ewell, he rose and caught the front wheel as Langridge passed, throwing him into the hedge and breaking the axle, and the address he gave the constable proved false. The Bench called the case clearly proved and very serious, ordering 25s. 6d. costs and £1 7s. 6d. damage; the paper's leader treats it as pure wanton mischief that might easily have been fatal.