Vol 3, No 15
Articles in this issue
- The editorial pronounces the Annual Race Meeting a complete success, regretting only that the President did not try conclusions with Cortis and that accidents were frequent, though none serious. Cortis's heat in the Open Race drew the most enthusiastic applause, Thorn's early accident left him dependent on friends for machines, the District Race was a toss-up between the West and the S.E. to the very last, and deferring the Open final until after all the Club events kept interest up to the end; thanks go to Mr. Cornell, Mr. Miles, the referees and clerks of the course, Messrs. Adams, Coleman and Smith, Miss Godlee for the closing ceremony, and the Hon. Sec.
- Hon. Sec. Herbert R. Boyce, writing from Warrington Crescent on 22nd June, earnestly asks members to return their unused race-meeting tickets with payment for those used. Winding up the accounts is trouble enough without a repetition of last year's dilatoriness over a few shillings.
- Full results from Stamford Bridge, where the crowd was large enough to gladden a sorrowful Treasurer and the Members' Handicap brought forward new talent fostered by the "Colony" Meeting. C. E. Parker won the One Mile Handicap (prizes given by J. B. Holdsworth) easily by a dozen yards; C. E. Liles took the Two Miles Open Handicap final by a yard from A. P. Shaw with Cortis unplaced and Dundas falling fifty yards from the tape; W. T. Thorn, jun. won the Ladies' Challenge Prize on a borrowed machine by two yards from Wyndham; and in the Ten Miles District Challenge Race Wyndham dashed to the front twenty yards from home to carry the light-blue colours in, Herbert beating the West man by a length so that the South-East holds the cup for the third time.
- Copies of the groups photographed by R. M. Gruggen at Walton-on-Thames are now at 35, Eastcheap, where anyone may see them and select from the series. Large prints cost one shilling and smaller ones sixpence, the charge being made only to cover the expense of production.
- Tabulated district meets: N.E. 3.30 Lea Bridge Road and 3.45 Syborn's Corner for Navestock; N.W. 3.45 "Jack Straw's Castle" for Rickmansworth; W. 3.45 Kew Green for Horsell; S.W. 4.0 the "Clarence," Teddington, for Sunningdale; the Croydon Division 4.15 Central Croydon Station for East Grinstead and the Blackheath Division 4.0 Old Lewisham Church for Godstone. A footnote adds the S.W.'s 3rd July meet at Hampton Court (Lion Gate) at 4.10 for Chobham.
- Reprinted from "The Field". The first contest, Whit Monday 1877, ran from Bath through Calne and Chippenham to Brentford against a north-east head wind: twenty-four started, sixteen finished, eleven inside the time, C. Walmesley first in 8 hr. 23 min. 30 sec. In 1878 a shortfall in the course forced a diversion through Devizes with the goal moved to Hounslow, and a following south-west wind let F. E. Appleyard and W. T. Thorn head a field of thirty-two. Rain made the 1879 trial slow, only four of twenty-six timed in inside ten hours, A. H. Koch winning, and on 17th May 1880 a north-east gale beat all twenty-four, Wynne and Butler fighting it out through Marlborough and Newbury before Butler abandoned at Twyford and rode in at leisure, reaching Hounslow 12 hr. 2 min. from the start.
- The first of the new series, "I.…The First Road Trial", by "Historicus". He recalls why the Bath Road was chosen, variety of surface, scope for hill-riding, a level finish, few important towns, and a start beyond the reach of Bank Holiday cockney excursionists, then describes 21st May 1877: nineteen men at church parade at the Abbey in full uniform with badge, twenty-four at breakfast, and a 7.30 a.m. start given by the then Hon. Sec. F. Jolly a quarter of a mile beyond the Cleveland Bridge. Box Hill split the field, all walked Marlborough Hill, and C. Walmesley led from its summit to reach Jolly at the Brentford end at 3.55, eleven men covering the distance under 9½ hours.
- "Slow Coach" opens with a parody of Scott ("Breathes there a man with soul so dead… I'll hie me off to East Grinstead") and then blames the South-Easters themselves for never describing their favourite run in two volumes of the Gazette. Railing to Croydon and riding on by Caterham and Godstone, he judges East Grinstead the equal of Sevenoaks or Dorking for scenery and better for comfortable, reasonable quarters, the "Railway Hotel," the "Dorset Arms" and the "Crown", and sets out routes to Tunbridge Wells by Holtye Common, Ashurst and Langton Green, to Dorking by Felbridge, Horley and Norwood Hill, a round by Horsham, Crawley and the Saxon church at Worth (with a toll-gate charging twopence for "velocipedes"), and another over Wych Cross to Maresfield and quaint Mayfield.
- On 18th April Buckler and the writer abandon a run to Worthing because of a gale off the coast and instead go up the Ripley road, turning off at the "Bear," Esher, and on by Ockshot, Leatherhead and the base of Box Hill through Betchworth to Reigate, where a railway-crossing porter knocks over Buckler's machine and answers with a volley of abuse, provoking a row with the natives. After the "Grapes" they fight the wind to Crawley, are nearly blown off at Goff's Hill, dine well at the "Anchor," Horsham, and return by Rudgwick and Guildford to Weston Green, 75 miles in less than eight hours' riding, thirty of them into the wind.
- Under "Bicycles and Lamps", a report of the Wimbledon summonses brought by Inspector Mason. Robert Dann and Thomas Eastwood, both in the service of Sir Joseph Bazalgette, were fined 20s. with costs each for riding in the High Street at nine p.m. without lights, and the apprentices Joseph Brill and Charles Stevenson 20s. and 2s. costs for the same offence, Mr. Paget holding that bicycles are dangerous enough under any circumstances and should not be used without full warning.
- District Captain Norman B. Morris gives the route for Saturday 26th June to Rickmansworth, Fortune Hill, Hendon, Collingdeep Lane, Edgware and Whitchurch, promising capital swimming in the Colne and tea at the "Swan". He also proposes a short evening run from the Heath at 7 p.m. on Wednesday 30th June, to be continued every Wednesday through July if fairly well attended.
- A parody by "E. H. H." of Gray's Elegy, following the cyclist's early morning run past rustics who complain of "such as rush at fifteen miles an hour" and country roads free of roughs, urchins, nursery-maids and clamorous crowds. It ends with the youth who fell the night before, remarked "Funny cropper that," and was dead by morning; his fellow-clubmen vote a tombstone whose epitaph records that he had no oil lamp and no brake, with the tailpiece "Lamps and bells are now compulsory."
- Credited by the guide-books as the highest of the Surrey hills at 965 feet, with 80 feet more for a penny up the tower built a century ago by a Mr. Hall, who is said to be buried there. The view takes in twelve counties besides Surrey, Ashford in Kent, Chanctonbury Ring and Ditchling Beacon, the Channel through Shoreham Gap, the Hambledon Hills and Dunstable. Coming from Guildford the best approach is the second turning on the right past Gomshall Station through Sutton to Abinger Hatch; the writer regrets leaving his machine at the inn there, the road being perfect for two miles up through a forest of firs.
- J. Williams, Junr. of Croydon still wants a cheap 50-inch roadster and E. P. of Stavordale Road a cheap hub-lamp. For sale: O. Thorn's light Keen 52-in. roadster at £10; W. T. Hill's 54-in. "Coventry" at £8 10s.; Ernest Barrett's "Stassen" with eccentric brake at £8; E. Paxon's half-bright 52-inch "Grout" with roller bearings at six guineas; and A. E. Buckler's 53-in. "Club" with bright forks and backbone and a 24-in. handle-bar at £11.
- "L'Homme qui Rit" notes that the Open Mile first prize has come to an L.B.C. man four years running, Pem Coleman on Ham Common in '77, A. Herbert at Bushey Park in '78, Rucker at Surbiton in '79 and W. T. Thorn there in '80, Thorn being lucky, after breaking his handle in the Members' Handicap, to be mounted by Cortis and Ainslie; and that not one of the seven finalists in the Open Two Miles was a Londoner. He also runs through the fancy N.E. teams proposed for the District Challenge Cup, the ladies who found watching a ten miles race tiring enough, the S.E. District Captain's "white elephant" pot from Herbert and Wyndham, a proposed mile handicap with medals for members' brothers under sixteen, the fast-selling new Gazette covers, and his curiosity about "The Coming Falconer-Cortis Race," the Picnic and the Central Club Room.
- From Bournemouth: two ploughboys wanting to attend a choral festival thirty miles off borrowed an "iron-tyred" fellow-labourer, rode him jointly the six miles into the next town, hired two cycles and did the forty-eight miles there and back "on rubber," then returned in the evening triumphant on the slow but comfortable quadruped.
- Part I of a verse tale, "a melancholy history founded on fact". Brown and White are champions from one mile to a hundred who cross the tape together in every event, until the laughter at their dead heats turns their rivalry into deadly coldness. Brooding in his den over a costly flagon inscribed "This Cup was won by William Brown… which place he shared," Brown looks out on the lawn where his lovely and heart-breaking sister Mary walks among the flowers, and a plan begins to form.
- The L.A.C. Second Summer Meeting, with a four miles bicycle handicap open to amateurs, at Stamford Bridge on 26th June; the Bicycle Union Twenty-five and Fifty Miles Championship meetings at Stamford Bridge on 1st and 8th July; the Civil Service B.C. meeting on the 3rd; and the Belgrave B.C.'s one mile open to amateurs at Stamford Bridge on the 10th.
- Thomas Geo. Nevill, writing from Bridge Wharf, Hoxton on 18th June, corrects the statement in the week's Gazette that no L.B.C. man is known to have ridden all the way up Muswell Hill: he rode up it on 4th October last in the presence of the two Messrs. Booty of the Atlanta B.C., and found it tougher than Reigate.
- 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 reach the office by Wednesday morning for immediate insertion. Messrs. Darling supply 2s. portfolios stamped with the Club badge, and for new members still have a few covers for 1878 and back numbers at 1d. each.
- The Editor thanks C. R. Hutchins for the loan of a "Scrap Book" of cuttings from the Field and elsewhere, of great value in writing "Old Tales Retold", and promises it shall be carefully looked after and returned.