Vol 2, No 34
Articles in this issue
- The standing banner over the Club's official business, heading the Committee's report of its meeting of the 6th October, 1879.
- At the meeting of 6th October, George William Pearse, insurance broker, of 40, Aberdeen Park Rd., was elected a member on the proposal of W. W. Williams and A. E. Buckler. Mr. W. J. Rayner and Mr. R. C. Parsons were struck off for non-payment of subscription, Mr. A. H. C. Burrow's resignation accepted, and Mr. Appleyard (gone to Afghanistan) and Mr. A. P. Stokes (leaving for Hong Kong) placed on the absentee list.
- Continued: the Heidelberg baths, a brewery where students hold beer-drinking competitions, a torch-light procession, a Kneipe, the Castle with the largest vat in the world, and the duelling scars the students prize. The party then rides to Mannheim, Worms and Oppenheim into Mainz, Trollope buckling his "Keen" and ripping a tyre off in dodging the crowd, and sits out the great storm at the "Rhine Hotel."
- Report of Cortis v. Keen, the twenty-miles race at Wolverhampton and the first of their three matches. Keen waited on Cortis's back wheel the whole way to the barracking delight of the Wolverhampton crowd, spurted in the last lap but one, and was beaten by a yard in 64 min. 43 3/4 sec.; M. D. Rucker judged and G. P. Coleman took the time.
- Concluding the tour: Wilson catches up at the col with a bruised wrist, flattened Salisbury lamp and bent treadle after rolling down a mountain with his machine after him. The pair go on by Arrens and Argelez to Cauterets at 12 francs a night, walk to the Lac de Gaube, and sail home from Bordeaux in the "Kestrel" after helping the town's fire brigade fight a blazing brandy cellar.
- At the meeting of October 8th at 108, Fenchurch Street, Messrs. Rucker and Jolly were elected committeemen and Ernest C. Koch honorary secretary and treasurer. Koch asks for the 5s. subscriptions, for a cornet, oboe or clarionet and viola for the band, and for a City practice room, the room at the "Bell" not being available this season.
- Theo. Godlee's notes, made on foot but with a bicyclist's eye, on the road from Toblach to Cortina, the Etsch valley from Botzen to Meran and Mals, the Stelvio, nineteen miles of collar work up thirteen zig-zags but rideable, and the Bernina, Albula and St. Gotthard routes, with a warning that both roads out of Cortina are totally unrideable.
- Two N.W. men leave "Jack Straw's" on October 4th for Potter's Bar and a night at the "Washington" at Welwyn, then ride the lanes by Kimpton and King's Walden to Hitchin, where the Martyr's pin snaps in the socket and a blacksmith repairs it. The N.G.'s ponderous "Stassen" then loses its crank at the axle and is finally wrecked when he sinks into the spokes, and it goes home from Stevenage by train.
- Eavesdropper notes Jolly back at Committee after his serious illness; Will Thorn's season's first open prize, a third at the L.A.C., reckoned to have cost him £70, with Runtz first; Cortis's disappointing Wolverhampton time against his 18 miles in 56 min. 52 2/5 sec. at Lillie Bridge; Christie of the Dark Blue Club shooting off his thumb; and the Treasurer writing from the Mammoth Cave Hotel, Kentucky, on bicycling's start in Cleveland, Ohio.
- N.W. District: six met at "Jack Straw's" on the 11th, abandoned Elstree at the sight of Brockley Hill and made a 20-mile circuit by Stanmore Church, Kenton Lane, Wembley Park and Neasden, home before the fog came down. S.E. District: three men bound for Leatherhead turned for Westerham, were refused eggs at Cudham, and rode home by moonlight, Densham, E. H. Carr and A. Barker.
- Concluding: "Ack" argues that the tricycle, unlike the man-monopolised bicycle, should be called "she," citing troops of ladies on sober "Excelsiors" and quiet "Coventrys" in the New Forest, a Mrs. Grundy-approved tricycling costume, and the county names on the Kukladia Tricycle Club's list, before parting from Facilis and his "Stassen" at the station.
- A comic ballad subtitled "A Tragic Scene, witnessed at a Seaside Railway Station," in which Widow Gunn counts the trunks and the currant cake on the platform at Blankton-on-the-Sea while her son Fred confesses that the only thing left behind is his heart. Signed I. G.