Vol 3, No 4
Articles in this issue
- A leader arguing that the London Bicycle Club deprived of its Gazette "would resemble a human body without lungs or blood-vessels": opinion would cease to be ventilated, coteries would form among neighbours and the Club might disintegrate. Since the paper cannot be fed by four or five pairs of hands and "an editorial brain soon waxes sterile", every member is urged to make himself an amateur "special" and send in his narrative of a run however homely, the Gazette being also a journal that will be valuable to read in after years.
- The open One Mile Bicycle Handicap, handicapped by M. D. Rucker jun., at the L.A.C.'s First Spring Meeting on Saturday 3rd April before about 2,500 spectators. H. V. Cleaver (L.B.C.) won the first heat by a foot with a grand spurt into the last straight; H. L. Cortis of the Wanderers beat W. T. Thorn jun. by a yard from scratch in the second; J. F. Griffith of the Surrey B.C. took the third easily. In the final Griffith came away at the end of the first lap and won by forty yards in 2 min. 53 sec., Thorn second and Cortis third, the times taken by G. P. Coleman with a Benson's chronograph.
- A modified form of the well-known Multum-in-Parvo, designed by A. P. Trotter of Trinity College, Cambridge (L.B.C. and C.U.Bi.C.) for long tours. It holds half as much again as the old pattern and has a strong screw-clamp fixing it to the spring; a smaller bag sits below the ordinary Multum with the tool-pocket beneath, and the space between the two takes a waterproof cape or guide-book that can be pulled out without touching the straps. Several C.U.Bi.C. men have used it for some time and it is made by Meiter and Co. of Gracechurch Street.
- "Biscotin" describes the bag he has used for three years, made to his design in solid leather by Mr. Crout, a saddler in Wormwood Street, Bishopsgate - rigid enough to keep its shape and shaped like the "J. K." or "Saturday to Monday" but with a single receptacle and no side or bottom pockets. It takes a thin flannel shirt in a tight calico bag with spare collars, wire, stout string and an oil-feeder for these days of paraffin lamps, straps to the saddle and clamps to the spring by the wooden bar he believes Mr. Rucker invented for the M.I.P. bag, and costs 12s. 6d.
- The tabulated meets for April 10th and 17th, with the W., S.W. and both S.E. divisions converging on Ewell on the 10th - the S.W. riding a circular run from the "Griffin", Kingston to the "Glynn Arms" to meet the others about six - and Upminster, Shenley, Harefield, Newlands Corner and a 4.45 paper chase at West Wickham on the 17th. A footnote adds that on April 24th all Districts meet the Cambridge University B.C. at Hitchin, the time and place of starting to be published in the Gazette.
- On polling day in Middlesex, the joint N.E./N.W. run to Enfield found "The George" refusing them tea for political reasons, while the four N.E. riders watched drunken electors pelt eggs at a man tossing cigars from his window until the N.W. contingent arrived.
- About forty members gathered at the "Three Bucks", Gresham Street on April 6th, Mr. Jennings in the chair and the Captain as vice-chairman. Rucker was given a gold keyless hunting watch made by Hooper of Messrs. Frodsham's, Strand, and a framed testimonial on parchment prepared by Mr. Martin carrying the names of the 140 contributors, with the Club colours of red, black and blue worked into the margin. Songs and recitations by "The Major" - whose "melodious African chuckle" struck newcomers as weirdly solemn - and Rucker's parody of Irving followed, Cortis and Sopper of the Wanderers and Mr. Nairn joined the party, and more than one member thought it as good fun as a Club dinner at the "Grosvenor" and a good deal less expensive.
- "L'Homme qui Rit" on how much of a rider's peace of mind depends on his saddle-bag when a fugitive oil-can has to be ransacked for at 80 degrees; on the week's two bag letters, Trotter being a practical man though the writer holds that one charm of the bicyclist's life is freedom from encumbering parcels; on A. Henry carrying A. E. Buckler ten miles from Leatherhead on the step after Buckler's "Club" broke down; on the spring famine that leaves a weekly editor's "tub" light; on the North East man who, taking up "Amythaon"'s suggestion, offers his District Captain a twelve-year-old "Bone-shaker", a "Beck", a "Stassen" and a "Challenge"; and on the N.E.'s refusal to let the S.W. monopolise half the paper with run reports.
- The season's list from April 24th - the Surrey B.C. at Kennington Oval, the Alert B.C. at the Alexandra Palace and the Royal School of Mines two-mile handicap - through the L.B.C. Evening Race Meeting on May 5th, the 100-mile Bath Race on May 17th, C.U.Bi.C. v. L.B.C. on May 29th, the newly added Kingston Bicycle Club meeting at Surbiton Running Grounds on June 12th and the L.B.C. Annual Race Meeting on June 19th, to the L.A.C. Winter Meeting at Stamford Bridge on November 6th.
- Captain Theo. Godlee asks any member wishing to ride in the Inter-Club Races against the Cambridge University Bicycle Club on 29th May to communicate with him at once, as no time should be lost in fixing who is to represent the Club.
- Norman B. Morris concludes the tour, 27th-30th September. Williams entrains at Angoulême, where the romanesque west front of St. Pierre and the views from the old ramparts detain the rest; then Rouillac, Matha - where Hutchings falls in a rut and breaks his mile-gauge - and a moonlight run into Niort past vines "fearfully devastated by the phylloxera"; then the hedged green Vendée by Champdeniers and the annual fair at Secondigny, its peasant women in horned lace caps, to Bressuire. The last day passes Mortagne-sur-Sèvre, the granite pillar at Torfou whose Vendéan leaders' names have been chipped away, and the castle at Clisson where Republicans threw peasants alive down a well, ending at Nantes. Home by St. Malo and the "Guernsey"; twenty-eight days cost about £20 a head, only 10s. 10d. a day in France, with Hutchings and Morris riding 746 miles apiece and Packe named the best Pyrenean guide.
- Any member still holding copies of the Glees not returned after the late concert is asked to send them at once to F. Jolly, 37, Downs Road, Clapton, E.
- J. W. Langmore asks the Club's many riders of Humber machines to tell him of a good hub lamp that can be got into a 52-inch wheel with 70 spokes, his own "Salsbury" of last summer refusing to go into position "by any amount of persuasion or force".
- "West-Nor'-West" argues in "Club Runs and Meets" that General Meets should be cut to two a season, since most men attend out of duty rather than pleasure; "Irish Challenge" defends W. A. Smith's Waiting Powers, describing the Captain waiting an hour and three-quarters in hot sun before taking back lanes past Charles I's Newbury lodging to dodge the town's anti-cyclist element.