Vol 5, No 20
Articles in this issue
- A standing note that the latest hour for reception of copy for the Gazette is 5.30 p.m. on Tuesdays.
- An unheaded leader pressing members to send copy in on Mondays so the Gazette can be posted on Thursdays: delayed to Friday it reaches men who leave home before the post only on Saturday afternoon, too late to arrange to meet friends at a District run, and the Post Office is careless with papers. The Editor notes that matter is now so plentiful that last week the "Notice to Correspondents" had to be cut out and the Hon. Sec.'s race-ticket notice omitted.
- The District Captains' marshalling for the Harrow Meet: the N.E. leaves Lea Bridge Road at 3.30 for "Jack Straw's," the N.W. leaves there at 4.30 to ride in with them, the W. meets at the District Stable at 4.45, and the S.E. joins the S.W. at the "Coach and Horses," Kew by road or rail at 4.30. Tea at the "King's Head" at the top of the hill.
- The Hon. Sec. again asks members who have not settled for their Race Meeting tickets to do so at once, so that the Treasurer can issue the trial balance sheet as resolved at the Committee Meeting of the 5th ultimo.
- R. M. Gruggen's photograph taken at the Race Meeting can be seen at the Gazette office at 9d a copy, and members wanting one should send a post card so that no unnecessary number is printed; copies of the Ewell photograph are also on view at 3s. 6d.
- Executive meetings of June 27th, July 4th and July 11th at 17, Ironmonger Lane: R. P. Hampton-Roberts appointed librarian and H. R. Reynolds, Jun. hon. sec. to the "Dangerous Hills" Committee, thanks voted to the Birmingham Championships Committee, no further steps taken in the King case, the amateur status of the Syndale Park Sports riders adjourned, and a thorough investigation ordered into the Brighton Coach and bicyclists affair.
- With the Captain's permission the tournament proposed last week is started on the rules then given; entries stay open till Monday the 24th, thirty-one names are already in, a member has offered a second prize, and the first ties will probably have to be played off before Saturday, August 5th, never on a Saturday afternoon.
- H. R. Reynolds, Jun.'s own account of riding 199 1-2 miles from Regent's Park to York in 21 hours 43 minutes on the night of June 29th, on the 56-in. D.H.F. Premier he had ridden in the Bath race, to disprove The Field's claim that Mr. Thorpe's 1876 journey could not be repeated on a modern machine. Mr. Tegetmeier piloted him through the dark to Potter's Bar and the Rev. W. D'A. Crofton set the pace to Hitchin; he breakfasted at the "Old Mermaid" at Wansford, found the oolite beyond Stamford all ruts and stones, pumped water over his head at Doncaster, and rode the last execrable nine miles from Tadcaster to reach the Castle Bar Gate at 9.43 p.m.
- W. R. Sewell's comic essay on feeding, opening with Cortis eating roast pork at eleven on the Friday night before a race and winning as usual, which shook the writer's notions of training. He describes the annual dinner's claw-hammer coats and "vinous buccaneering," the Marmalade Fiend who leaves each District's tea table ringed with empty preserve dishes, and the gastronomical feats of hard-boiled eggs, pork chops and radishes performed at a Club tea.
- E. H. Pollock of 25, Thurlow Road, Hampstead offers a 53-inch silver-plated "Humber" roadster with ball bearings to both wheels, brake, silver-plated Stanton's cyclometer and a nickel-plated Dearlove's King of the Road head lamp, at 15 guineas, having cost double.
- "Rambler" regrets the Athletic Review has ceased to appear, reports the Union taking up the Brighton Coach case, and looks forward to Keith-Falconer and Cortis at the Wanderers' meeting on the 1st or 2nd of August. He teases the N.E. hounds of the paperchase, welcomes Gus Wilkinson, the first L.B.C. man to ride up Reigate Hill, back on a visit, and prints a correspondent's account of the Croydon Public Hall meet of the 11th, where Mr. Corry read the latest telegram about the Egyptian forts and the band played "Rule Britannia."
- W. J. Williams has lost his Bath Medal through an insecure fastening and cautions fellow medallists to look to theirs; appended is W. R. Sewell's intimation that after his illness he has moved to 5, Sheen Villas, Park Road, Richmond.
- The district meet table, with the Wisley Hut picnic for the W. and S.W. and Riverhead for both S.E. divisions, followed by the note that on July 29th all Districts run to Harrow and that there is no official run on August 5th on account of Bank Holiday.
- The N.E. paperchase saw one hare, the District Captain, and six hounds cross a muddy pond and Friday Hill by riding, swimming, walking and jumping before tea at Mrs. Godlee's and a musical evening in which the doctor in the hammock was nearly somersaulted out of it. Seven Nor'-Westers rode 36 miles to Ickenham to meet a single W. representative, A. H. Koch, and got a poor tea; the S.W. Captain rode to Reigate entirely alone; and the S.E. found The O'Reilly at "The Grapes," up from Brighton for the seventh time this season, with Reynolds riding Reigate Hill with his accustomed ease.
- The list for July, headed by the South London Harriers at Stamford Bridge, the Five Miles Amateur Championship at the Crystal Palace and the North Warwickshire B.C. races at Aston, all on the 22nd.
- E. J. and H. H. Sherriff continue their journal: from Gelert's grave and the "Royal and Goat" at Beddgelert, where B.T.C. prices halved the bill, over the deceptive climb past Pen-y-gwryd to Capel Curig, then the fine six-mile descent of the Llugwy valley to Bettws-y-Coed and the Fairy Glen, with the Swallow Falls and the legend of Sir John Wynn of Gwydir on the way back. Next morning rain robbed them of Snowdon, and they walked the Llanberis Pass in a blinding downpour, taking over two hours for the ten miles to Llanberis.
- A. J. Bacon, the Club's Antwerp member, describes a Sunday run in Holland with a Clarendon Club man, a member of the Bicycle League of America and an unattached American: Rotterdam to Overschie, Delft and the Hague over poorly laid brick and seductive gravel paths, then through the park to Scheveningen and dinner at the "Zeerust," 33 kilometres in all at 45f. 90c. a head. He offers to help any member passing through with roads, routes, trains and hotels.
- Contributions must be addressed to the Editor at 35, Eastcheap, E.C., bear the author's name though not necessarily for insertion, be written on one side of the paper only, and reach the office by 5.30 p.m. on Tuesday for immediate insertion.