Vol 6, No 32
Articles in this issue
- Leader sketching the three types of L.B.C. member the Club Dinner provokes, the ascetic who holds the Club was formed "to bicycle, and not to dine, to dance, or to play tennis", the sybarite who prizes the Lawn Tennis Tournament and the S.E. Ball, and the moderate man who likens the dinner to a Harvest Home. It complains that only 70 or 80 sit down out of a Club of 240, and asks members to make a record attendance.
- Minutes of the meetings of 29th September and 29th October (the latter at the "City Arms Tavern"): J. T. Crier and E. Warner Lumley elected; a Smoking Concert arranged; copies of the Gazette carrying Mr. Cobb's tour presented to the C.T.C. Consulate at Geneva and a bound 1882 volume to the N.C.U. Library; resignations of H. W. Bridges and Guy Du Maurier accepted; a Boxing Day paperchase on foot resolved on; and the Captain instructed to engage Stamford Bridge for the 1884 Annual Race Meeting.
- Hon. Sec. E. S. Price reminds members that the dinner is at the St. James's Hall Restaurant on Wednesday 21st November at 6.30 p.m., with special attention paid to the menu; tickets 7s. each.
- E. S. Price asks members to send him lists of prizes won during the year, distances ridden over 100 miles, and short notes of tours, for insertion in the Annual Report.
- District Captain R. G. Francis announces the annual dance at the Public Hall, Croydon, on Wednesday 12th December at 8.30 (gentlemen 10s. 6d., ladies 5s.), lists twenty-one stewards including A. Barker, the Herberts, the Potters and W. T. Thorn, and calls a final stewards' meeting at the "King's Arms", Katharine Street, Croydon.
- Notice of the concert on Wednesday 7th November at the "London Tavern" (late "King's Head"), Fenchurch Street, in the Queen's Room; E. T. Sachs will give an exhibition of legerdemain, admission is by 1s. ticket only, and two tickets are enclosed with this number.
- District Captain R. G. Francis reports four unofficial runs: Westerham on the 6th, where thirteen men gathered at the "King's Arms" and F. L. Adam arrived on a newly bought tricycle with his terrier Trap; a moonlit ride through to the "Glo'ster" at Brighton on the 13th; a muddy run to the "White Hart", Bletchingley, on the 20th; and the 27th to the "Maxwell Arms", where Barker's backbone snapped on Hayes Common and he walked in to tea.
- A scratch ride on Saturday 13th October from Tally Ho! Corner to Little Berkhamsted, gathering Elgood, Jackson, Lyne and Stunt at Barnet and later Kelsey, Long and the Hon. Sec., who broke a crank at the start, borrowed a tricycle, ran over a child and broke a spring before arriving triumphant. Signed by A. H. Lown, District Captain.
- Captain Ashley W. Barrett urges members and their brothers and friends to turn out for the chase, to be run throughout on foot whatever the weather. The plan under consideration is to start the hares from Croydon at noon over a circular four-hour course, returning to the "King's Arms", Katharine Street, to dine at 5 p.m. with prizes for the first three hounds.
- A retiring District Captain, signing "Dodo", defends the office against its reputation: the weather disappointment and the fine-day desertion are its worst trials, but total failure is usually the D.C.'s own fault, since "example is better than bushels of postcards". Against this he sets the corps d'elite of regular followers and the young wobblers who soon win laurels for the District.
- The University Club's run to Haverhill and tea at the "Swan", Linton, drew eleven men; the Club "Double" has paid off two-thirds of its cost in six months and introduced professors and deans to cycling. The Fifty Miles Road Race on the 26th went to J. S. Whatton (Trinity) on a 58-inch "Rucker" from A. W. Rumney and C. W. Fagan, and the path races of November 5th will include the University Club's first-ever tricycle race; Mr. J. W. L. Glaisher is the new President.
- "Rambler" defends his Echo by citing the 1878 Committee's Official Report, which put the S.E. attendance at the Hampton Court Meet at 34, against the figure printed in the Gazette. "Imprimatur" argues that the Club's membership stopped growing in 1878, precisely when it severed its connection with the bicycling press and founded the Gazette, and urges that press representatives be invited to the Dinner and Smoking Concerts.
- First instalment of a Franco-Swiss tour of September 1883: the party missed the tide at Dieppe, put up at the "Chariot d'Or", and lost hours at Rouen and Mantes to Williams's newly overhauled machine, which shed a handlebar screw and then locked its front wheel, obliging an old woman with a cart to carry it in. The writer's practical advice is how to avoid Paris altogether, St. Germain to Versailles and on to Choisy-le-Roi, joining the Geneva road six miles out.
- W. F. Sutton of the London Scottish B.C. rode 258 7/8 miles from Wood Green through Worksop and Retford to Tempsford in under 24 hours, beating all previous records with the mileage checked by two road books. The N.C.U. Council adopted a scheme for regulating professional racing, promptly condemned at a Leicester meeting worked by ground proprietors, and a rule suspending riders who compete at unsanctioned sports, which will force the L.B.C. to hold its Race Meeting under N.C.U. rules or get its own code sanctioned.
- "Porcupine" notes the L.B.C. contingent at the Otters' annual entertainment, where Rucker judged and was only twenty minutes late; recommends the Wasps football club at Putney; and praises Rucker's new tandem bicycle under Barker and J. C. Oswald. He also records the Bacon–Hockley marriage at Chelmsford, the row over the two Smoking Concert tickets members must pay for, and "Wyvern" wintering in the south of France, out of reach of the Gazette.
- A. Henry has moved to Meadowside, 21, Avenue Villas, Cricklewood.
- For sale: a closely built 56-inch "William Keen" in good condition, offers to J. F. Potter of Beddington.
- Contributions must be sent to the Editor at 35, Eastcheap, E.C., bear the author's name, be written on one side of the paper only, and reach the office by Tuesday evening for immediate insertion.