Vol 3, No 11
Articles in this issue
- Captain Theo. Godlee reminds District Captains to look up their teams, since the Race Committee have not had enough support for the suggestion of limiting the race to two or three districts. He points out that under the new rules districts are no longer confined to the fifty-mile radius, so the N.E. has Cambridge and Oxford within its limits, and offers to arrange an evening at Stamford Bridge for any district wanting a trial race.
- The London teams for Saturday's Cambridge match: W. Wyndham, A. Herbert and J. Scott in the mile; W. T. Thorn, jun., Herbert and O. Thorn in the four; Wyndham, Thorn and A. D. Butler in the fifteen. Tower, Pollock, Leeds, Day and Bailey will be among the Cambridge men, Mr. Cornell is proposed as judge, and under the new points rules every man is expected to finish. Cleaver's accident deprives the Club of him for a month; racing begins about three o'clock, with trains from Liverpool Street at 11.35 and King's Cross at 12.5.
- At the Committee meeting of 24th May 1880, Hudson E. Kewley of Clifton Grove, Slough (proposed by W. T. Thorn, seconded by W. A. Smith) and Ernest Paxon of 15, Ferndale Road, Highbury (proposed by G. H. Gibbs, seconded by J. C. Keynes) were elected members; the resignations of Messrs. J. L. Densham and S. P. Smith were accepted.
- The meet table for the next two Saturdays: N.E. from Lea Bridge Road and Syborn's Corner for Havering and Harlow, N.W. from "Jack Straw's Castle" for Essendon and St. Alban's, West from Harlesden Green for Rickmansworth and from Addison Road Station for Sanderstead, S.W. from the "Griffin," Kingston, for Dorking and Betchworth, and the S.E. Croydon and Blackheath divisions meeting at Penshurst, Betchworth and Shoreham, with Wednesday evening runs to West Wickham and Addington and to Banstead.
- The N.E. run to Havering failed, A. Fowler was the only man at Syborn's Corner, and rode to Chigwell instead. The N.W. took ten riders to Little Berkhampstead by Tally-ho Corner, Enfield, Botany Bay and Goff's Oak, through a shower and "juvenile mountains," to veal-and-ham pies and a 2s. 6d. tea at the "Five Horse Shoes," riding 38½ miles home by moonlight and nightingales. The West mustered only two for 39 miles by Wembley and Elstree; the S.W. rode 41 miles over Reigate Hill to the "Black Horse" near Povey's Cross to meet the S.E., whose own turnout was thinned because Carr, Williams, Potter, Rucker, Wyndham and the District Captain were at a wedding at Blackfriars.
- The Editor asks District Captains to forward accounts of runs and notices always before twelve noon on Wednesdays, which would much aid the prompt issue of the Gazette; otherwise, painful as it is, tardy copy will reluctantly go into the too-late list.
- H. R. Boyce, Hon. Sec., announces the Annual Race Meeting for Saturday 19th June, racing at 3 p.m. punctually: a One Mile Handicap for members (prizes given by Mr. J. B. Holdsworth), the Two Miles Scratch Race for the Ladies' Challenge Prize, an open Two Miles Amateur Handicap and the Ten Miles District Challenge Race. Entrance is 2s. 6d. for each of the first three events; members are admitted on their badge, get two free ladies' tickets, and are asked to sell the four plain tickets sent out at eighteenpence each.
- Warm thanks to the managers for free admission and admirable arrangements at Surbiton on 25th May, and to Dr. Coleman for the successful "Exhibition" race. In the One Mile Unofficial Handicap the limit man F. Jolly, off 350 yards, won his heat, his round and the final by sixty yards to enthusiastic applause, beating C. E. Parker and A. E. Tyler; a One Mile Scratch race followed in which W. T. Thorn, jun., beat Kemp, Wyndham, Herbert and Cortis, the champion picking up but never passing his men.
- The One Mile Bicycle Handicap (Open) at the L.A.C. grounds, Stamford Bridge, on Saturday 22nd May, run in five heats. Cortis from scratch never got to the front and finished fourth in the first heat; W. T. Thorn, jun., A. Herbert and O. Thorn all placed for the L.B.C.; E. W. Jenkins took the final by a yard from C. T. Hunt with A. P. Shaw third.
- The fixture list from the C.U.Bi.C. Easter Term races and the C.U.Bi.C. v. L.B.C. match on May 29th through to the L.A.C. Winter Meeting on November 6th, now including the three Bicycle Union Championship meetings at Surbiton Running Grounds, one and five miles on June 16th, twenty-five miles on June 23rd and fifty miles on June 30th, alongside the London B.C. Annual Race Meeting on June 19th.
- An unprejudiced verdict on the 1880 meet as a mixture of success and failure: good as a demonstration of bicycling's hold on the public, but a decided falling off as a display, with old clubs scarce, poor musters and riding without style. A semi-panic greeted a club of mounted "darkies" in balloon costume and wigs arriving from Hampton Court Bridge; the start was at 5.8, the pace a dead march through Bushey Park with long straggling gaps, the provincial clubs rode better together, and only two "Extraordinaries" and several good tricycles were noticed among some conspicuously damaged machines.
- Three notices: Stephen P. Smith of 9, Morden Road, Blackheath, wants a second-hand roadster of 50 or 52in. with a brake; M. H. Dicker of Belgrave Terrace, Lee, offers a 49in. "Stassen" at £7; and R. G. Trollope of Kingston Hill Place offers a 58in. racer by John Keen, in perfect order, at £10, strong enough to carry a light weight on the road.
- "X" rides forty miles from a Hampshire village to West Drayton by Farnham, Bagshot and Staines, then on Whit Monday waits nearly an hour near Theale for the Trialists. He picks up A. D. Butler and A. H. Koch, and when watches show twenty-three miles left in two hours twenty-three minutes Butler throws it up; they ride on to "the genial Mark" at Maidenhead, who sadly orders the sponges put away, and reach Hounslow to find "the frozen remains of the Captain." The writer believes solid food at Newbury would have brought Butler in near ten hours; he later rode Kingston–Leatherhead–Reigate and Sutton–Guildford, meeting thirteen flocks of sheep and oxen.
- "L'homme qui rit" regrets that free admission to the "Colony" meeting was not more widely known, cheers Jolly's gold medal and the old Hon. Sec. carried shoulder-high to the ladies' stand, and thanks Cortis, Kemp and Runtz for the scratch race. He notes the Standard's leader on athleticism drawn from the Hampton Court Meet, the member who waited two hours on Sonning Bridge and was gone before Butler passed, the Times announcement of Martin Diederich Rücker's wedding at Christchurch, Blackfriars, Ernest Barrett winning the Earl of Dufferin's Challenge Cup for the 120 yards lacrosse race, uneaten sandwiches at Newbury and untasted champagne, and the want of numbers on the racers.
- Four letters on the failed Trial and after. "Marlborough Hill," under the heading "Shall We Run It Again?", differs from W. X. W. and wants a Special General Meeting called to decide on a repeat in October, plus power for the Captain to postpone in hopeless weather. R. G. Francis, writing on "The Bath Trial," thinks postponement impracticable but would give the enamelled medal to the first man home irrespective of time, and corrects the record, three "William Keens" were ridden, not two. "Competitor" protests that Freeth's Marlborough times are worthless since many men, himself included, had already given up outside Devizes; and Bacon writes from the Chaussée de Malines, Antwerp, offering a hearty welcome to members following the "Rhine Eight," though Belgium's boulder-paved country roads banish the iron horse.
- The standing notice that contributions must be addressed to the Editor, L.B.C. Gazette, 35, Eastcheap, E.C., bear the author's name, be written on one side of the paper only and arrive by Wednesday morning for immediate insertion, with Messrs. Darling's Club-badged portfolios for unbound copies available at 2s.