Vol 2, No 31
Articles in this issue
- Prompted by a semi-private letter, the Editor addresses Sunday riding. He will not tell members whether to ride, but reads the bye-law forbidding the badge on that day as a via media between the strict Sabbatarian and the habitual Sunday rider, and asks that those who do ride should not obtrude the fact, in talk or in the Gazette, on members whose family and religious obligations forbid it.
- "Jack" arrives by train among two "Humbers," a fat "Stassen" and a consumptive D.H.F., is fetched by a page on a 36-in. "Ariel," and is met at Cornish Battlements by F. Descensus ("Facilis") on a White Knight of a machine hung with leg-rests, wheel-bag, Dutch clock, strap-brake and mud guards. With him rides a "Wandering Minstrel" of the Wimborne Minster B.C. who commutes 14 miles a day, 4,200 miles a year. A stroll down the Bourne valley to the sea, wheelmen streaming over the hill to Swanage, and a wistful glimpse of a grey-dressed girl reading under "Quercus V" close the instalment.
- The club's second meeting, at the L.A.C. grounds, was ruined by rain that turned the path into a swamp. The L.B.C. was represented by Herbert, Thorn, Cleaver and Wyndham; Wyndham, cheered on his first appearance since his fall, won his heat by six yards and took third in the final. Cortis started from scratch in an eight-man final, rode a third of the distance on the extreme outside edge of the path and beat H. R. Reynolds by two yards in 2 min. 59 3/4 sec.
- The district table: Lea Bridge Road and Syborn's Corner for Harlow, and a 3 p.m. start for Ewell by "Jack Straw's Castle" and Kew (N.E.); "Jack Straw's Castle" for Eastcott and for Ewell, meeting the S.W. at Kew Green (N.W.); Harlesden Green for a circular run to the "Black Horse" (W.); Kew Green at 5 p.m. for Ewell (S.W.); and Central Croydon for Kingsbury and the circular run to Ewell (S.E.).
- A soaking week. N.W.: five men from "Jack Straw's Castle" rode 37 miles through Kitts End, Dancers Hill, Potter's Bar and North Mims to the "One Bell," Hatfield, wringing out their coats over tea. W.: four men waited at the "Royal Oak," Harlesden Green, then took a short circular run to the "White Horse," with Noel Whiting back in the saddle after two seasons. S.E.: the start delayed by a shower at the Fire Engine Station, Ewell abandoned for home, while three Blackheath men crossed by boat from Woolwich Pier and rode liquid roads to the "King's Head," Chigwell, where no North-Easters had turned up.
- A one mile handicap between John Keen (champion) and W. Phillips (25 yards) before about 500 people on a wet afternoon. Keen overhauled Phillips in the first lap, took the inside berth, and won by two feet in 2 min. 49 3/4 sec., lap times given in full; the writer defends the figures taken by G. P. Coleman on a Benson's chronograph against doubts cast "in another paper." Stanton won the ten-miles handicap from Phillips in 31 min. 45 sec.
- Six days out from London the actual riding at last begins: a 6 a.m. start from Bâle, the landlord of the "Trois Rois" driving out by cab to see them off past the paving, five or six miles lost through a wrong turn, refreshment at Ottmarnheim in dreadful heat, a bathe in a canal followed by stinging gnats, lunch and a shave at New Breisach, champagne wasted on a man they took for an army officer and who proved to be police, and a sunset arrival at Markolsheim, 47 miles from Bâle, where only a small roadside inn could be found.
- Five dates: Beckenham B.C.'s mile, Kildare A.C.'s two miles at Lillie Bridge and Grafton C.C.'s mile at Stamford Bridge on September 20th, Arion B.C.'s mile on the 27th, and the L.A.C. at Stamford Bridge on October 4th.
- Eavesdropper on the Pyrenean party's war-cry "A bas les puces!" and the French army paving 150 miles from Bordeaux to Bayonne in a night; a new paper, the Athletic and Bicycling World, edited by J. G. Deplidge of the L.A.C., due October 1st; the Rigi Kulm hotel praised by the "Rhine Eight" but not by later visitors; a sharp member charged 1s. 6d. for each half of his dismantled bicycle and so paying 3s.; S.E. men objecting to being called "noisy and wakeful brawlers"; draconian draft bye-laws for bicycles on the main roads of Kent (a red lamp shown forwards, a bell audible at 40 yards rung continually, a 12 m.p.h. limit); Frank Jolly's illness; and the news that the Bicycle Union has all but settled a Cortis–Keen match at one, five and twenty miles.
- The conclusion of the serial. A telegram from Mrs. Brown of Greek Street brings the narrator to London to find his cousin Hugh Temple dead of concussion of the brain, and among his papers an unposted letter to Ivy Dale, the girl the narrator had been mistaken for Hugh and married on her deathbed. At Ivy's graveside he tells Jessie the truth of the two Hugh Temples; Colonel Dale dies soon after, and Jessie at last becomes his wife at the British Consulate at Berne. An editorial note adds a postcard from Mr. Hutchings at Eaux-Bonnes reporting the Pyrenean party's progress and the "Stassens" well to the front uphill and down.
- A letter from the "Pyrennean Representative," dated Eaux-Chaudes, 13th September 1879: a smooth passage, a deviously ridden route delayed by miles of paving, rain and head winds, national curiosities including a donkey in trousers and "oeufs à la coque," magnificent scenery, asphaltic roads and first-rate pommes frites, after a ride that day to a frontier town about level with the top of Snowdon.