Vol 3, No 16
Articles in this issue
- The standing head under which the Club's official business for the week is printed, the Committee minutes of 28th June, and overleaf the L.B.C. Dramatic Society's notice, the Club Handicap announcement and the Hon. Sec.'s renewed request for unused Annual Race Meeting tickets.
- At the meeting of the 28th, William Keith Adam of Blair Adam, N.B., and Exeter College, Oxford, was elected a member and Mr. J. B. Fleming's resignation accepted. Mr. N. B. Morris was elected one of the Club's representatives on the Bicycle Union; a suggestion about the Bath Trial was discussed and held over to the next meeting; and Messrs. F. M. Williams and W. T. Thorn, Jun., were appointed delegates to a meeting of South London bicycle clubs convened to memorialise the Directors of the Crystal Palace Company for a cinder path at the Palace.
- The Gazette is glad to see the sport at length establishing itself across the Atlantic, its advent delayed by the bad roads, and reprints the New York Herald's telegraphed account of the first national bicycle meet, held at Newport, R.I., on 31st May. Some thirty clubs sent delegates to the skating rink on Bellevue Avenue, where the constitution of the League of American Wheelmen was adopted unanimously, a one-dollar initiation fee, and objects of promoting bicycling, defending wheelmen's rights and facilitating touring, with Charles E. Pratt of Boston elected President and C. K. Munroe of New York Commander. The afternoon parade of a hundred-odd machines led by Mr. C. E. Hodges drew vast crowds down Bellevue Avenue, the New York club in soldierly grey, the Boston boys in brown, Providence brilliant in white, and the red stockings of the Yonkers boys greatly admired.
- Twenty-one new members were elected at the Committee meeting of 25th June, bringing the Society to thirty-six. A General Meeting is called for 108, Fenchurch Street on Wednesday 7th July at 6 p.m. to confirm the minutes embodying the Rules and to elect Committee and Officers for the ensuing season; all members are asked to attend with suggestions for pieces to be played and the parts they would take. Signed Fred. W. Morris, Hon. Sec.
- A One Mile Handicap open only to members of the London Bicycle Club will be held at Surbiton on Thursday 22nd July, racing to commence at 6.45, with three prizes of £3, £2 and £1 and an entrance fee of 2s. The Race Committee will handicap, and entries must reach Hon. Sec. Herbert R. Boyce on or before Saturday 17th July.
- Hon. Sec. Herbert R. Boyce, writing from Warrington Crescent on 29th June, repeats his request that members who have not yet done so return their unused tickets, with payment for those used, without delay.
- Tabulated meets: N.E. 3.30 Lea Bridge Road and 3.45 Syborn's Corner for Ongar; N.W. 3.45 "Jack Straw's Castle" for Digswell Hill; W. 3.15 Acton Church for Chalfont St. Peters; S.W. 4.10 Lion Gate, Hampton Court, for Chobham; the Croydon Division 4.15 Central Croydon Station and the Blackheath Division 3.30 Old Lewisham Church for the Purley Downs photographic meet and Godstone. A footnote fixes 10th July for Riverhead, the two S.E. divisions meeting at Lock's Bottom at 5 p.m.
- A deliberately detailed account of the first meeting held under Rule 26, a rule inserted somewhat hurriedly at the General Meeting, with no rules regulating such proceedings, so that this meeting stands as a precedent. Held at Branthwaite House, Clapton, by Jolly's kind permission with Theo. Godlee in the chair, it took the resignation and summons as read; C. Child nominated F. Jolly by letter, Jolly himself nominated Ernest Barrett, and on a ballot Barrett was declared duly elected. Cordial votes of thanks followed to the retiring District Captain F. Godlee, who had held the post more than three years, and to Alfred Fowler for serving as Deputy in his absence.
- A week broken up by thunderstorms. In the N.E. a single member reached Syborn's Corner, found even the newly elected District Captain absent, and rode to Navestock alone "to pay them all out by scoring two attendances"; the N.W. Captain, Hill and Williams got only to St. Lawrence beyond Edgware before the storm drove them to a poor and dear tea at the "Abercorn Arms," Stanmore; the S.W. abandoned Sunningdale for Walton and tea at the "Swan"; the Croydon Division was saved from a blank by A. O. Tylor, five men taking a cold bath, tea, lawn tennis and music at the "Railway Hotel," East Grinstead with Rucker and The O'Reilly up from Brighton; the Blackheath Deputy rode alone to Keston; and one rider embodied both the S.W. and W. districts at Sunningdale, Horsell and Ripley. Notices follow of the N.W.'s Wednesday evening runs from the Heath and of the S.E. photographic meet on Purley Downs, to be taken by A. P. Trotter with tea at the "Clayton Arms," Godstone.
- "X" and a friend ride from near the Crystal Palace to Brighton by Crawley, shedding an 'Arry on a wheel who is left with a compound savouring of gin and beer, then on Monday take the Lewes road, tie in two drawn hollow spokes, overhaul a tricyclist being pushed up a hill and rattle him along at twelve miles an hour, and dodge a bolting three-horse wagon near Berwick. After lunch at Eastbourne and the ruined castle at Pevensey a spring breaks near Bexhill and is mended with riding-gloves and string; next day they go by Robertsbridge, Ticehurst, Wadhurst and Frant to Tunbridge Wells, are raced through Tunbridge by a very screwed man in a pony-cart, walk up River Hill and find strawberries in abundance atop Madamscourt Hill, reaching home seven hours from St. Leonards, covered with mud and wet through.
- The One Mile and Five Mile Championships at Stamford Bridge Grounds on Thursday the 24th. C. E. Liles of the Temple beat W. T. Thorn, jun. by two yards in his heat and then took the final by a bare half-yard, S. Kemp getting second on the post by inches and H. L. Cortis, who led early, never able to get away. Cortis won the Five Miles from J. R. Hamilton by a yard in 15 min. 5 sec. after Ainslie twice spurted to the front, "about the finest race ever seen", Thorn coming so fast at the last corner that, had there been room to get through, the L.B.C. might have had a championship this year.
- Part II of the verse tale. A fortnight after Brown brooded in his den, the rivals meet at the races at the "Oblong," where Jack Blunt, the leading professional, is set against the amateur cracks before a huge gate and a well-represented Press; Jack dashes through his men in style but can never reach the two who ride neck-and-neck and finish neck-and-neck. In the dressing-room Brown extends his hand and proposes they drop their feuds, White responding in kind, and the public marvels that "the two scratch men no longer cut each other", but the invitation Brown gives before they part, that White shall visit his paternal home next week, is the trap, and the narrator vainly begs the "foolish White" to plead any excuse and refuse.
- "L'Homme qui Rit" reports on East Grinstead's new lawn tennis court and Cortis's loss of the Mile Championship, and notes that the twenty-mile match between Cortis and Falconer, delayed since March, will now be run in October. He also records Rucker riding up Muswell Hill twice in one evening on a tricycle, and the Treasurer's letter from Shanghai describing a well-dressed Chinaman riding a bone-shaker with an umbrella in hand.
- Ernest Barrett's "Stassen" with eccentric brake at £8; E. Paxon's half-bright 52-inch "Grout" with roller bearings at six guineas, and his want of a good cheap hub-lamp; A. E. Buckler's 53-in. "Club" with bright forks and backbone at £11; C. Y. Lyne's 54-in. "City" by W. O. Aves, ridden only 300 miles, with nutted spokes, hollow forks, grip lever brake and "Pickwick" bearings, at £12 against £17 10s. cost, to be seen at the City Bicycle Works, 46, Barbican; and H. H. Crawley's 56-in. "Humber" racer at £11, to be seen at Stamford Bridge.
- The Civil Service B.C. meeting at Stamford Bridge and the Bristol and Western Counties bicycle meet and races at the Zoological Gardens, Clifton, both on 3rd July, and the Bicycle Union Fifty Miles Championship at Stamford Bridge on the 8th. J. Conyers Keynes of Wimborne supplies the full bill for the Poole Bicycle Club's opening of its new cinder track in the Cricket Field on Wednesday 7th July, Lord Wimborne president, a first-class military band, admission 6d. with the railed enclosure 1s. extra, competitors and bicyclists in uniform free.
- The week's letters to the Editor, opening with "Elections" and continuing overleaf with "The Bath Road Trial" and "Leith Hill."
- "Ethe" recalls his earlier, favourably received but unacted-upon proposal that officers be selected by simple examination papers, and now suggests that candidates for Club office issue election addresses to their constituents, a scheme needing no Committee initiative and promising the Editor copious copy in the dead season. He supplies specimens: a would-be Captain promising race meetings on alternate Saturdays with a ten-shilling fine for non-starters, unlimited Bath medals at nine hours in a west wind, and the abolition of the Gazette to buy a racing track; an opponent proposing a single meeting and twelve hours; a sitting Captain in the style of the members for Birmingham; a District Captain refusing all joint meets; and a challenger charging the Treasurer with "hopeless imbecility," answered by that officer's trenchant reminder of a subscription paid on 29th November after six letters.
- "Irish Challenge," writing on 26th June, suggests starting fifty miles this side of the entrance gates to Savernake Forest, somewhere about Slough, and taking the Bath Road to Savernake and back. The hundred miles would start and finish near home, avoid Box and Marlborough Hills, dodge the wind for at least half the journey, give a more level course and more entries, let club men see the race pass twice, and allow the fifty-mile times to be well kept at Savernake.
- Alfred Henry of Weston Green corrects the impression left by "Pann's" trip in last week's issue that the top of Leith Hill cannot be reached on a cycle, four members successfully negotiated it last month. Taking the road on the right about half way through the fir plantation and then bearing to the left is perfectly rideable and comes out at the foot of the mound on which the tower stands, where a gate marked private opens on a road running straight into Dorking by Coldharbour.
- "Slow-Coach" corrects his East Grinstead paper at p. 117 of the last number: for "Ely" read E.G., and for "Hern" read Hever.
- 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, there are still a few covers for 1878, and back numbers may be had at 1d. each. A note to "Paterfamilias" promises an answer next week.