Vol 2, No 29
Articles in this issue
- The club's official department, set in blackletter at the head of the number and carrying the Committee's report for the week.
- At the meeting of Monday the 1st inst. E. E. Jessel was put on the absentee list, having gone to the West Indies; J. B. Houldsworth's offer to present a cup to be raced for was accepted with thanks, details of the race being left over; and Theo. Godlee was added to the Committee and took on the Treasurer's duties during his brother's absence.
- With Trollope still too ill to ride, the party abandons the planned Black Forest run, trains from Bâle to Lucerne, steams across the lake to Vitznau and takes the rack railway up the Rigi, one-in-four gradients, the Gross Grubis Fall and Kaltbad, to a night at the Rigi Kulm hotel. A footnote corrects last week's Bâle policeman story: they rode "straight by him," not "straight at him."
- "Disc" argues that the fixing of rubbers to the felloes has been neglected by makers, quotes "Essedarius" on the tyre being part and parcel of the wheel, and holds up Timberlake's method, a wire run not through the middle of the rubber but close to its inner edge, drawn tight by a long nut with a right and left-handed screw, as the acme of both attachment and freedom from flint cuts.
- A windy day's mixed riding and pushing from Nurstead through Hurst and West Harting to Beacon Hill and its Ordnance survey post, then over blind tracks to Hook's Way, Chilgrove and Bow Hill (792 feet) with its tumuli and British earthworks, returning by East and North Marden and down Harting Hill on the backstep, cutting the tyre with the brake.
- The tabulated district meets for the coming weeks: Lea Bridge Road and Syborn's Corner for Brentwood, Chigwell and Harlow (N.E.); "Jack Straw's Castle" for Ridge via Finchley and Mill Hill (N.W.); Acton Church for Ruislip Reservoir and bathing (W.); the "Griffin" at Kingston for a circular run by Banstead Races and Ewell (S.W.); and Central Croydon Station for Westerham and Riverhead (S.E.), plus the standing Wednesday evening runs from Acton Church and Croydon.
- District reports: only Long and A. Fowler out to Chigwell Row for the N.E., whose captain's substitute appeals for run accounts; twelve N.W. men to Elstree by Colin Deep Lane, where they were turned off the line by police while inspecting the wrecked Scotch express, then bathed in the reservoir; W. and S.W. men converging on Halliford, where the "Ship" kept fourteen hungry riders waiting an hour for tea; and a divided S.E. run through Godstone to the "Railway Hotel," ending in songs at the piano and a vote of censure on the leading detachment.
- J.W.L. answers the sceptic's "What pleasure can you find in scouring the country on those things?" by distinguishing active from passive motion and arguing that bicycling balances the two better than skating, walking, rowing or horseback, the hill rousing the muscles, the run down resting them, so that fatigue and lassitude each keep the other off.
- At Sierck the pair are repeatedly taken for telegraph officials paying out wire; a wretched supper of raw schinkefleisch and mouldy bread precedes a night at Kirf, where a crowd waited from 4 a.m. to see the Englishmen and a smith mended a broken spring for eighteenpence. They ride on to Treves, steam 120 miles down the Moselle to Coblentz, follow the Rhine road to Cologne and return by Antwerp, 650 miles in fifteen days, over 400 of them ridden, in almost unbroken rain.
- Under the sub-head "The Eclipse," a review of John Keen's machines: the Eclipse Racer, some weighing only 28 lb. to the 54-in. wheel, with hollow weldless steel front fork, a hollow backbone carried down in place of a hind fork, a 100-spoke front wheel and Keen's own ball bearings, the machine Cortis rode to this season's feats. The Eclipse Roadster gets the split-tube hind fork, but the too-short centre, the weak spring and a brake called "a mere farce" are condemned.
- Eavesdropper on two young ladies tricycling with paterfamilias through Godstone; the cheap and good "White Hart" at Blackwater; N. B. Morris, A. E. Buckler, W. J. Williams, C. R. Hutchings and H. Jennings sailing by the "Kestrel" for Bordeaux and thence over the Pyrenees into Spain; Mr. Payne of the "Railway Hotel," East Grinstead recovering from his trap accident; Croydon's abominable macadam asphalted by the tramway company; and Oswald, the S.E. captain, off his "Humber" for the season and reduced to a Scottish pony.
- Nine dates from September 6th (St. Paul's A.C. two miles at Stamford Bridge and Surrey B.C. one mile at the Oval) through Clapham, Beckenham, Kildare A.C., Grafton C.C. and Arion B.C. to the L.A.C. meetings at Stamford Bridge on October 4th and November 1st.