Vol 3, No 26
Articles in this issue
- No. III retells the L.B.C.'s first general run, on Saturday 2nd April 1876, mustering at Kew Bridge between the "Star and Garter" and the Waterworks until forty-six riders swept through Surbiton and Long Ditton to loud welcome. Mr. Coleman beat a fast pony in a short race at Fairmile, the men rode into Ripley three abreast behind the president, captain and district captain, and after feeding at the "Talbot" a party of eight rode on through Guildford and over the Hogsback to Farnham.
- From the Referee: H. L. Cortis's attempt on twenty miles within the hour at Surbiton Grounds on Thursday, September 2nd. Behind at ten miles, he then cut the record for every mile from eleven to eighteen (18 miles in 53 min. 57 sec., against C. H. F. Christie's 57 min. 27 2/5 sec.) before his pacemakers Liles and Griffith collided in the nineteenth mile and he fell heavily over the wreck, Griffith breaking a leg. Followed by a grim commentary on bicycle smashes and a query from Stephen P. Smith of Blackheath about the roads from Marlborough to Cheltenham.
- From our own correspondent: the Surrey Club's hill-riding trial, in which only twenty of the seventy-four selected from some 150 entries got up the 7,920 feet from the "Grapes Hotel" to the Bridge, a rise of 420 feet including 600 yards on stone flags 18 inches wide. John Keen started the men and Mr. Fox of the Bicycling Times timed the finish; H. R. Reynolds was judged the speediest and Cortis rode up with one arm in splints, but the timing was ruined because one watch was an ordinary one and the other was altered after comparison.
- Alfred Henry's solitary two-day ride from Weston Green by Esher, Windlesham, Bagshot, Blackwater and Hartford Bridge Flats to Basingstoke (40 miles), where the "Wheat Sheaf" gave supper at 1s 9d and bed at 1s 6d. Next day a slow goods train to Porton, five miles up to Amesbury, an hour among the stones at Stonehenge, then down the Avon valley by the three Woodfords to Salisbury Cathedral and on through Fordingbridge, Ringwood, Sopley and Christchurch to Bournemouth, 51 miles.
- An extract from an Indian paper, headed "Bicycling under the Moon" and signed "Atalanta" of Calcutta: six bicyclists ride out by moonlight up Dhurrumtollah and College Street, mistake a line of pack elephants for a phantom, chase jackals down the road with a "Tally Ho!", and reach Barrackpore Railway Station, sixteen miles in one hour thirty-two minutes, where the stationmaster lends them a room for supper, songs and a Toole-and-Irving anecdote.
- Five dates listed: I Zingari B.C. race meeting at Stamford Bridge (Sept. 11th), the Surrey B.C. autumn meeting at Kennington Oval (Sept. 18th), a Druids B.C. one mile open at Stamford Bridge (Sept. 26th), and the L.A.C. autumn (Oct. 2nd) and winter (Nov. 6th) meetings, both at Stamford Bridge.
- Continuing from Laurgaard, the pair climb through the Rusten gorge above the foaming Lougen, pass Broendhaugen, Dovre and Toftemoen, whose owner claims descent from Harald Haarfager, and toil up to Dombaas at the head of the Gudbrandsdal, 2,040 feet up and twenty-one miles on, where the landlord had "bicycle on the brain". Deep sand through a pine forest between Holset and Lesje Jernvaerk made the worst stage of the road, and they reached Molmen, 52 miles from Laurgaard, to an impromptu levee of curious natives.
- A full-page inserted plate, one of the Woodbury-types the Editor asked members to help stick into the Gazette, showing the competitors in the recent match races between the London Bicycle Club and the Cambridge University Bicycle Club.
- District reports for September 4th. The N.E. pair rode by Walthamstow to Chingford, arriving just too late for a balloon ascent at the "Forest Hotel", then on by Tottenham and Highgate to Oak Hill House, Hampstead. The N.W. went by Willesden and Neasden to Kingsbury church and the "Welsh Harp", a "Timberlake" backbone snapping clean off near Golder's Hill on the way home, and seventeen members sat down to tea. Four S.W. men rode from the "Griffin" to the "Hautbois" near Ockham; the S.E.'s Croydon Division split between Foot's Cray and Reigate Hill, and Blackheath ran to Greenhithe on the Dover road.
- The same single entry as last week: a 56-inch all-bright "Humber" light roadster in perfect condition, £13, from F. W. Nicholson of St. Edmund's, Upper Richmond Road, Putney.
- Tabulated meets for the N.E., N.W., W. and S.W. districts and the Croydon and Blackheath divisions of the S.E., the N.W. now going to Ickenham rather than Iver and meeting the S.W. there, with 4.10 Central Croydon Station for East Grinstead and "Hare & Billet" for Farningham.
- Gossip signed "L'Homme Qui Rit": a son born to the wife of Henry Edward Millar at Hampstead, L.B.C. men at the Charing Cross Swimming Bath on Friday evenings, and regret over Cortis's accident, one racing member said he was more cut up by it than by the recent disaster to the British troops in Afghanistan. Also yachting rumoured for the Purfleet meet, the Otter Swimming Club's entertainment at the St. Marylebone Baths, the growing use of "Patter Books" by singing members, the Newbury B.C.'s ten-mile challenge cup race on the Bath Road, and a member's complaint that at the Gloucester A.A.C. sports the bell was never rung for his heat of the One Mile Bicycle Race.
- A letter from the Sportsman by H. R. Reynolds (D.B.B.C. and L.B.C.) of Longcroft, Banstead, urging that the track the Crystal Palace Company propose to lay for bicycle racing be gravel rather than cinders: gravel is if anything the faster surface, as the Cambridge path times show, and its wounds are far less likely to fester or leave permanent disfigurement.
- A single line thanking C. B. Wheeler and asking for more. Printed immediately below an erratum correcting last week's "Across Norway" (p. 196), where "supper at the Hotel of Kirtem" should read "supper at the hotel" and "Molu" should read "Moen".
- Standing notice that contributions must go to "The Editor, L.B.C. Gazette, 35, Eastcheap, E.C.", bear the author's name, be written on one side only, and arrive by Wednesday morning; Messrs. Darling supply badge-stamped portfolios at 2s. and back numbers at 1d. each.