Vol 2, No 35
Articles in this issue
- A leader on the prejudice that still clings to bicycling, one charming country gentleman promised to cut off any son of his caught on a machine with a shilling, arguing that riders should exercise more self-control than the correct foot-passenger until it is generally allowed that a man's breeding is not impaired by moving at ten miles an hour. The London Bicycle Club, it claims, has done much to show men can behave as decent folk on a "Keen," a "Rudge," a "Humber," a "Coventry", or even a "Stassen."
- Captain M. D. Rucker, Jun. gives notice that the Club Room at Kew will be discontinued after the end of the month, and that members leaving their bicycles there after that time will do so at their own expense.
- At the meeting of 20th October, Montague Meyer, merchant, of 2, Eastcombe Villas, Blackheath, was elected on the proposal of R. H. Curtis and W. S. Meyer; Mr. W. R. Harris was struck off for non-payment; the resignations of Messrs. C. A. Gallop, P. K. Langdale and A. J. Wilkinson were accepted; Mr. A. O. Ward went on the absentee list; and Rucker, A. W. Barrett and H. R. Boyce were made a sub-committee for the Club dinner.
- The Annual Dinner will be held at the Pall Mall Restaurant on Wednesday, November 26th, the Grosvenor Gallery of the last two years being closed. Tickets remain 7s., sixpence of which goes to the waiters to prevent "cadging," and W. A. Smith again takes charge of the music.
- The term's first races on the University ground: the Midland rider C. A. Palmer failed to appear for the Four Miles Invitation, which W. T. Thorn, Jun. of the L.B.C. won from A. P. Shaw by a yard in 12 min. 45 sec., with C. A. E. Pollock third. The heats of the Freshmen's Four Miles and Monday's One Mile Handicap and Five Miles Roadsters follow, and J. F. Darrell beat Rucker in the Hundred Yards Slow Race on a 51-in. "Humber," Rucker afterwards giving an exhibition of fancy riding.
- Wyndham, Fred. Williams and Ashley Barrett ride from Riverhead over the hills out of Wrotham to Gravesend, cross to Tilbury Fort for ninepence a head to see its Charles the Second gate, and reach Canvey Island by the bare channel at Benfleet. They dine at the "Lobster Smack" at Holy Haven, a half farm half inn under the sea-wall kept by Charlie Beckwith, and get home in the small hours with 90 miles for two of them and 79 for the third.
- Eavesdropper relays the Treasurer's report from New York of awful roads and machines built with wooden forks and iron saddles; defends the Cortis v. Keen matches against the wiseacres who call them "arranged," noting Cortis offered to ride for honour only; and tells how Thorn, Rucker, Cortis and Partridge of the Lynn B.C. righted the fallen mail horse near Horston at 12.30 a.m. and were thanked by the postmaster.
- A review of Mr. E. R. Morris's map-measuring instrument, whose appalling name is chaffed at length before the notice turns serious: the seven-pennyweight device gauges from a sixteenth of an inch to twenty-five feet, proved right to a minute fraction on chart, map and carpet alike, and would be a wholesome corrective to fabulous accounts of distances run.
- A letter signed "Dexa, C.U.Bi.C." on the term's racing: the 25-mile Monthly Handicap Cup, started all from scratch, went to Macleod by three yards from Tower in 1 h. 27 min. 59 sec.; and the fifty-miles challenge cup Road Race of October 20th, its course kept secret from the authorities, ran 47 miles from Huntingdon by Eaton Socon and Biggleswade to Cambridge, H. S. Clarke on a 52-inch "Club" beating F. F. Tower on a 57-inch "J. Keen" by 21 seconds in 3 h. 7 min. 59 sec.
- Norman B. Morris's account of the "Pyrenean Five", A. E. Buckler, C. R. Hutchings, H. Jennings, N. B. Morris and W. J. Williams, going aboard the "Kestrel" by wherry at Irongate Wharf on 4th September, crossing the Bay of Biscay past Ushant, and steaming up the Gironde past Pauillac and the Medoc vineyards to Bordeaux, its cathedral, and a table d'hote at the "Hotel Marin" that ended with a short-sighted member rolling into the gutter.
- Mr. Cobb, President of the C.U.Bi.C., forwards a memorial to the justices of the county of Cambridge on the bicycle bye-laws they mean to submit to the Local Government Board. It is signed by upwards of 70 riding members of the Senate or Fellows of Colleges, including four Fellows of the Royal Society, three Professors, eight past or present Proctors and six Deans, proof, the Gazette argues, that the memorialists cannot be thought indifferent to law and order.
- M. D. Rucker, Jun. announces that copies of R. M. Gruggen's photographs of the Ewell meet are ready at ninepence each, a charge fixed only to reimburse Gruggen for chemicals, paper and card mounts, he had wished to supply them gratis.
- Continued: cementing Trollope's tyre delays the start from Mainz, a helpful native at Ettville countermands the party's steak, and the Doctor is found fuming at Bingen after hours of waiting. They ride the Rhine to Bacharach in the moonlight, see the newly uncovered pillar paintings at Oberwesel and bathe at Boppard; then Rucker, racing a down-stream steamer on a three-foot path above the river, strikes a rock, is thrown on his head and is ordered off his machine altogether at Coblentz.
- H. V. Cleaver, of 20, Ladbroke Road, W., offers for sale a 55-in. light roadster "Humber" with ball bearings to both wheels, in perfect condition, price £13.
- C. H. F. Christie writes from 17, Norfolk Square to assure Eavesdropper that only his left thumb was blown off by the bursting gun, drawing the moral "Never cut Club Runs." J. F. Darrell, Hon. Sec., adds that L.B.C. men passing through Cambridge may use the C.U.Bi.C. rooms, longer stays than a week needing a committeeman's leave and half-a-crown to the attendant.