Vol 2, No 38
Articles in this issue
- In the last number of the year the Editor drops the editorial "we" to address members directly, recalling that the first editor, Mr. A. O. Ward, imposed only one condition on him - to keep the paper's pages unsullied - and arguing that an editor, like the captain of a penny steamer, must be an autocrat. He thanks Godlee, MacCullum Hill, Dr. Langmore, Hutchings, Morris, Rucker, Pollock, Christie and "Rusticus" for their contributions, dedicates some four hundred hours of labour to the Club, and leaves the question of whether the Gazette should run another year to the members whose pockets it concerns.
- Ion Keith-Falconer, writing from Trinity College, Cambridge in December 1879, sets out his views on training: the old "school of raw steaks" is dying out, and he has fared well on well-cooked mutton chops and a cream-meringue. His general rules are to rise and go to bed early, take air, exercise and a bath daily, be sparing with alcohol and tobacco, and above all give up late dinners - a point he backs with the Professor of Latin's letter in the Cambridge Review of December 8 - and he holds that bicycling is so little exhausting that hardly any special practice is needed beyond regular work on path or road.
- Reports of the meetings of 8 and 22 December, at which Alexander Pelham Trotter, John C. Randall, Arthur Baxter Visick, Henry Revell Reynolds, Charles B. Wheeler and Arthur Locke Radford were elected. The Annual General Meeting was fixed for 21 January 1880; Messrs. Coleman, Rucker, Dalton and Theo. Godlee were made a sub-committee to redraw the rules for the races with the Cambridge University Bicycle Club; officers were recommended for the ensuing year with the Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer as President; attendance scores for the seventeen meetings of the year are printed; and Hon. Sec. Herbert R. Boyce notes that the Club dies are held by Darling and Son, 35, Eastcheap, for stamping members' stationery.
- Hon. Sec. Herbert R. Boyce gives formal notice that the Annual General Meeting will be held at the King's Head, Fenchurch Street, on Wednesday 21 January 1880 at 6.30 p.m., and reminds members that Rule 28 requires written notice of any motion at least fourteen days beforehand.
- R. M. Gruggen's party stampede an old woman's cow on the descent out of the forest and are roundly abused for it, visit the fifteenth-century church at Louviers, and pick their way down two deceptive hills before an excellent six-course dejeuner at Gaillon. Riding on through Vernon along the Seine they are housed for 4s 8d each at the "Hotel de Soliel d'Or"; next day the endless paving beyond Maule wears them out, and at Versailles an irritable officer has the sentry turn their machines out from inside the palace railings, leaving two francs to buy them a guide through the closing picture galleries.
- Hon. Sec. Ernest C. Koch announces a concert for members and friends at St. George's Hall, Langham Place, on Saturday 28 February. The band is this year opened to friends as well as members and stands at some 25 to 30 players, the free list is entirely suspended, tickets are 2s. (half-price for members and ladies) from F. Jolly, M. D. Rucker or the Secretary, and singers - especially ladies for the glees, which M. D. Rucker is organising - are asked to send in their names.
- District Captain Palmer Dalton reports that only five members attended the first "social" of the season at "Jack Straw's Castle" on Saturday 13 December, notes that the house is now under new management and offers suitable accommodation, and fixes the next meeting for Saturday 3 January 1880.
- A November ride on a "nickel plater" by way of Maidenhead and Henley to Mapledurham ends in a riverside pasture where a bull drives its horns through the front wheel of the writer's "Club" machine, wrecking it, then charges him towards a backwater he cannot swim - at which point he wakes on his bedroom floor. Moral: don't eat lobster mayonnaise for supper.
- A route paper supplementing W. R. Sewell's "Littlehampton and Bognor" of June 1878 with a more direct road: across the Holmwood to Horsham with its tomb of Dame Elizabeth Delves, the Roman Stone Street picked up at Five Oaks, the 1489 "sowleys" brass at Billinghurst, then Pulborough and the Arun valley to Bury Hill. The writer corrects Sewell's distance from the top of Bury Hill to Arundel Park gates, recommends Fairmile Bottom, and warns that the half-mile flint descent of Duncton Hill out of Petworth should on no account be ridden.
- "Eavesdropper" reports that wheels have been abandoned for skates: L.B.C. men now meet on the lake at the "Welsh Harp", Hendon, where Naylor is the most graceful skater and W. A. Smith slogged round nearer 100 miles than 50, with a monster Club gathering expected there on Boxing-day. He also notes the concert has gone to St. George's Hall because the Albert Hall could not be had, the praise given to member R. V. Jennings at a Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers dinner, and Armor Boyle's departure to trade on the coast of Africa.
- Norman B. Morris's diary for 14-15 September: a wet Sunday at Eaux Bonnes spent in the salon with a French artillery captain, and a walk up the Montagne Verte for the last view of the Val d'Ossau. Then the crossing of the Col d'Aubisque to Argeles in unceasing rain, past the Cascade de Laressec and a chalet where the Captain stood hot brandy all round, over a 5557-foot summit and the Col de Couret, through a cattle fair at Arrens - and a flat contradiction of the claim that the Aubisque road is a mere "mule track".