Vol 6, No 30
Articles in this issue
- Standing editorial notice that the latest hour for reception of copy for the Gazette is 6.0 p.m. on Tuesdays.
- Leader opening with the barber of Dunkeld, who ruined his eyesight making a wig small enough to fit a nutshell, and rejecting the moral that enthusiasm is absurd. It paints the Young Enthusiast instead: at his first Meet he has the Blue Book at his fingers' ends, grumbles at the slow pace and short runs, confides that he means to ride the Bath Trial for a certificate, and is the only man at the starting point on the next wet Saturday. By the end of the season he is as well known as a member of five or six years' standing, and the Captain prizes him because nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.
- District Captain A. H. Lowy presses members to attend the last official run of the season to Mill Hill, a very short run that ought to bring out old and new riders alike, with a circular route for those who want more exercise and tea ordered for six o'clock at the inn famous for its black currant jam.
- R. G. Francis hopes the last meet of the year at Godstone will be largely patronised, notes that cripples and others are coming down by train, and says the Croydon Division will wait for the Blackheath men at the Fire Station until 4.30. A postscript gives the 4.37 train from Cannon Street, reaching Caterham (about a mile and a half from the 'Claydon Arms') at 5.25, with returns at 8.50 and 10.10.
- H. G. A. Brown, Ex D.C., and Stephen P. Smith, Dep. D.C., ask every member of the district to ride to Godstone next Saturday to show appreciation of the energy their popular District Captain has shown in his first year of office.
- The N.W.'s Harrow meet with the W. and S.W. was carried out on 15th September despite the rival attractions in the S.E., seven men sitting down to the evening meal at the 'King's Head.' Present from the N.W.: E. L. Boyer and his cousin, Elgood, Hindley, Tulloch and District Captain A. H. Lowy.
- Tabulated meets for September 29, the N.E. from Lea Bridge Road and Syborn's Corner for Abridge, the N.W. from 'Jack Straw's Castle' for Mill Hill, the W. from Savernake Cottage and the S.W. from Kingston Station for Leatherhead, and the two S.E. divisions from Croydon Central Station and Old Lewisham Church for Godstone.
- Report of the private Autumn Race Meeting at Stamford Bridge: S. Herbert won the One Mile Handicap final by five yards after O. Thorn's tyre came off, and Thorn won the Twelve Miles District Roadster Race in a little over 41 minutes. The Lacrosse match, tennis final and boys' 220 yards were also decided, and Miss Barrett distributed the prizes.
- S. G. Hough's tour begun on 8th September by Stamford Hill, Muswell Hill and a deplorable Barnet to Bedford, Kettering and Leicester, where a day's drenching left the pair wearing the twenty-stone landlord's clothes. After training to Derby they rode to Matlock, Chatsworth and Edensor, Baslow, Castleton for the Blue John Mine, Buxton, Ashbourne, Lichfield and Stratford-on-Avon (fourteen thousand visitors a year to Shakspeare's house), returning by Banbury, Aylesbury and Watford. He damns the Derbyshire roads as vile, calls the Aylesbury–Watford stretch the finest he was ever on, and concludes that riding every day without a break is a mistake.
- C. R. Hutchings, one of the 'Pyrenean five,' answers the fear that marriage is killing the Club by reporting a family party, a member and his wife with a member's brother and sister, pottering over 300 miles through Normandy on two 'Sociables' from St. Malo to Rouen by Dinan, Mont St. Michel, Avranches, Caen and Lisieux, carrying 50 lbs. of luggage a machine including a wholly successful folding indiarubber bath. W. J. Williams writes from Morez in the Jura that the Franco-Swiss Trio have covered 401 miles from Dieppe in nine days, crossed the Col de la Savine at 3,225 feet, and face the Col de la Faucille before Geneva.
- R. B. Hough trains to Sheffield for a week's riding and works north by Barnsley and Wakefield over the worst lumpy paving he has met, the young boulders between Hunslet and Leeds forcing him to ride the tram lines, then on by Halifax (warned off the direct Keighley road in favour of Bradford), Keighley, Ilkley and Otley to Harrogate for a sulphur bath and a glass of 'iron' water at the Spa, and finally Ripon, Leeming Lane and Richmond, where twenty miles of rain drove him to the train for Darlington and thence to Scarborough. He grades every hotel as he goes and recommends sending a portmanteau on ahead instead of carrying a multum, reckoning about 40 miles a fair day's ride.
- 'Porcupine' relays news from A. W. Chippindale at Adelaide, who covered three thousand five hundred miles in an eighteen weeks' bush trip and is off to Rockhampton and the Far North, and reports bicycling increasing in South Australia though sandhills and waterless stony plains limit it to the towns. Also the Ilex Swimming Club's 24th annual entertainment at the Lambeth Baths on 4th October, entries to Hon. Sec. O. G. M. Leeds; the unnamed member caught sneaking out of West Brompton Station for the Kildare sports instead of the Club meeting; Thorn's bad luck when his tyre came off in the Mile; warm praise for the S.E. novices who filled the places behind Thorn in the Twelve Miles and for their D.C.'s training of them; and a fifteen-page article on 'Cycling as an Intellectual Pursuit' by Dr. B. W. Richardson in the September Longman's Magazine.
- Under Rule 40 the Captain sanctions members racing at the Bournemouth races and the Chichester Cyclists' Club on 27 September, and at the L.A.C. meeting at Stamford Bridge and the races at Romford on the 29th.
- W. T. Thorn's address is now 49, Stanley Gardens, Belsize Park, N.W.
- Contributions must be addressed to 'The Editor, L.B.C. Gazette, 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 Tuesday evening for immediate insertion.