Vol 3, No 17
Articles in this issue
- Congratulates the Committee on its decision to offer further encouragement to the racing element, the Club Handicap at Surbiton on 22 July being a chance for young members to test their powers at a quiet evening meeting rather than before a critical crowd at Stamford Bridge. Recalls the days when members told each other that ours was not 'a racing Club', and argues that the steady-going road men are the Club's backbone while the flyers are the blossoms on the tree.
- A one-mile handicap open only to L.B.C. members will be held at Surbiton on Thursday 22 July, three prizes of £3, £2 and £1, entrance 2s., racing to commence at 6.45, the Race Committee handicapping. Entries to Herbert R. Boyce, Hon. Sec., 35 Warrington Crescent, on or before Saturday 17 July.
- Hon. Sec. Herbert R. Boyce asks members who have not yet done so to return their unused tickets, with payment for those used, without delay.
- The Editor wants half a dozen members to give up a Thursday evening at No. 35 to stick the 300 Woodburytypes of the L.B.C. and C.U.B.C. competitors into as many copies of the Gazette, a job he reckons at two or three hours. He adds parenthetically that a judicious use of the weed will be permitted, nay, encouraged.
- District reports for a thoroughly wet 3 July: the N.E. run to Ongar produced a single soaked rider at Syborn's Corner, while nine N.W. men rode 40 miles through Barnet and Hatfield to Digswell Hill, where Mr. Easterbee of the 'Red Lion' brushed them down and gave tea at 1s. 4d., Hill lacerating his hand on an embedded rock at Bell Bar. Also an N.W. evening run of 21½ miles by Wembly Park and Stanmore (nine pints of milk at the Church Farm Dairy), W. J. F. Potts alone at Horsell, H. Jennings's washed-out S.W. run to Chobham with a second account by A. Henry and A. E. Buckler, and the S.E. Croydon Division's photographic meet on Purley Downs where A. P. Trotter took four groups before tea at the 'Royal Oak'.
- Two members on 56-inch and 57-inch 'Humbers' ride from Maidenhead to Henley and on to Oxford through repeated thunderstorms, lodging at the 'Catherine Wheel' at Henley and the 'Mitre' at Oxford among a woe-begone crew of examination candidates, and noting a few tricycles but hardly any bicycles in the city. On the way home 56-inch comes down in thick mud three miles out, smashing off a handle close to the bar and finally training to town from High Wycombe, both riders concluding no machine can bear off the palm from a 'Humber'. Signed X.
- Gossip: the S.E. men turned out in the rain only because a camera was promised ('a tip for D.C.'s'), a flock of geese on Purley Downs was proposed for the background to pass for the N.E. friends, and the S.E. notice-board at the Croydon Fire Station ranks with the Bank of England. 'Philologus' of Bournemouth writes that 'Cycloides' can only mean 'very like a wheel' and that 'Bicyclus' is a Latin-Greek abomination, prompting a preference for 'Velociman' over the American 'Wheelman'; also talk of bringing bicycling under the jurisdiction of the A.A.A., the winding-up of the Colony, and the near certainty that H. V. Cleaver will retire from the path. Signed L'Homme qui Rit.
- Table of the six district meets for 10 July: N.E. at Lea Bridge Road and Syborn's Corner for Waltham Abbey, N.W. at 'Jack Straw's Castle' for Chenies, W. at Harlesden Green for Chenies, S.W. at the Hanworth Park cross roads for Ickenham, and the Croydon and Blackheath Divisions meeting at Central Croydon Station and Old Lewisham Church for Riverhead.
- The third and closing part of a comic verse tale: White, invited to Brown's, falls for Brown's sister Mary, abandons training, diet and club meets for sonnets to the moon, while Brown's steel steed carries all before him on the path. Brown bursts in with a challenge-race prize to find White announcing a better win, confesses at the wedding that he snared his rival to stop him racing, and is told the stratagem was 'such a very fair one'; the moral is that fame and 'Pots' go by the board when Love cuts out the running. Signed L. G.
- Meetings from 10 July (Belgrave B.C. one mile open at Stamford Bridge, and the Southampton Amateur B.C.) through the Rangers B.C. annual meeting at Alexandra Palace, the West of England Bicycle Meet and Races at the Zoological Gardens, Clifton, Bristol, and the Brixton Ramblers at the Crystal Palace, to the L.A.C. Winter Meeting at Stamford Bridge on 6 November.
- Members' small advertisements: C. Y. Lyne's 54-inch 'City' by W. O. Aves with nutted spokes and 'Pickwick' bearings at £12, three second-hand 56-inch 'Humbers' including H. V. Cleaver's 33 lb racer at £15 and F. W. Nicholson's light roadster at £18, and a 58-inch close-built racer of W. T. Thorn junr. F. Des Vœux wants to hire a 52-inch machine in A1 condition for two months, adding that owners of 'Stassens' or other trucks need not reply.
- The Field's account of the twenty-five miles championship at Stamford Bridge on 1 July, in which H. L. Cortis (Wanderers B.C.) passed W. T. Thorn (London B.C.) on the last bend and won by ten yards in 82 min. 15¾ sec., J. F. Griffith finishing forty yards behind Thorn with his hind wheel squeaking for want of oil. G. L. Hillier was upset by a faulty place in the course in the sixteenth mile and Kemp fell over him; a full table of mile times is printed, and 18 miles 525 yards were covered in the hour.
- 'Paterfamilias', the father of a bicycling family, protests not on religious grounds but on social ones against L.B.C. members riding on Sundays, asking whether the higher class of society makes its holiday on Sunday or whether that is left to the shop-boy, the cad and 'our Arry'. The Editor replies that by Rule 3 the Club badge may not be worn on a Sunday under any circumstances.
- W. X. W., who opened the discussion, answers 'Marlborough Hill', 'Another Competitor', 'Boreas', Mr. Francis, Mr. Freeth and Mr. Sharpe in defence of the existing rules, noting that Thorn and Keith-Falconer both failed in 1879 and that only three medals were won that year. He rejects an enamelled medal for all finishers and a there-and-back route, and argues that the Trial is not meant to be a mere pass examination, making a medal a certainty for every starter would depreciate both the medals and the interest of the competition.
- Standing note that all contributions must be addressed to the Editor, L.B.C. Gazette, Eastcheap, E.C., bear the author's name, be written on one side of the paper only, and reach him by Wednesday morning for immediate insertion. Messrs. Darling supply portfolios for unbound copies at 2s., stamped with the Club badge, and a few 1878 covers and back numbers remain.
- 'X.' and 'Successful at Last' are told their answers will appear next week.