Vol 6, No 5
Articles in this issue
- A leader following last week's on Club runs, arguing that if the Club's health depends on its runs, the health of the runs depends on the District Captain. Notes that last year the attendance medal went to the D.C. in every district but one, commends paperchases and picnics and the judicious postcard, and warns that too wild a rush disheartens the beginner while too funereal a crawl disgusts the flyer.
- The ruled meet table for 7th and 14th April across the N.E., N.W., W., S.W. and the Croydon and Blackheath divisions of the S.E., with destinations including Epping, Eastcott, Ripley ("Anchor"), Wrotham, Mill Hill, Eastcote ("Ship"), Oatlands Park and Weybridge, East Grinstead and Upminster. A line beneath announces a General Meet at Halliford on 21st April, times and starting places to follow.
- Reports of the 31st March runs from four districts. The N.E. rode by Higham Hill, Chingford, the "Forest Hotel" and High Beech to meet the N.W. at the "Green Dragon," Cheshunt; the S.W. mustered only three for a 20-mile circular through Claygate, Ockshott and Stoke d'Abernon to the "White Lion," Cobham, its new D.C. R. M. Gruggen promising to leave an information card on the Kingston Station mantelpiece for latecomers; seventeen members and three visitors took tea at the "Clayton Arms" in the S.E., where The O'Reilly rode up from Brighton and Douglas Smith from Oxford; and only one member joined the W. District's D.C. for a two-shilling meat tea at the "King's Head," Harrow.
- Captain Ashley W. Barrett asks for volunteer timekeepers for the Whit-Monday trial, listing the stations and their distances from Bath: Devizes 21 miles, Marlboro' Hill 35, Newbury 58, Reading 69, Maidenhead 83 and Slough.
- An appreciation signed W. T. H. of the member who died in March, recalling that he joined the L.B.C. in its infancy in 1875, was a firm supporter of the S.W. Division whose runs were not thought complete without his "pleasant jovial face," and was on two tours the most genuine and unselfish of companions.
- The concluding instalment: M. and B. are marched straight up the mountainside by their guide to the 8,803-foot Faulhorn summit, where they hoist the L.B.C. colours and lunch at the deserted inn, then glissade down towards the Great Scheideck past the Muhlbach Fall. The party quits Grindelwald and the "Hotel de l'Ours" for the 12½-mile descent to Interlaken, rides on by Thun to Berne, splits at Neuchâtel and crosses from Dieppe to Newhaven, closing with a contrast between the half-brick and the stable at home and the labourer's raised hat abroad for the "gentlemen with the velocipedes."
- A. W. B.'s account of the party the Captain found at the "White Lion", H. G. A. Brown, Douglas Smith, A. S. Morris, Hewitt and H. L. Ryan, and of the archaeological ramble that brought Charles Newman, Barker and Walter Meyer down by Winchester, Silchester's Roman ruins at Calleva, Salisbury, Old Sarum (where the explorers were assailed by stick-wielding agriculturists), Stonehenge and Yarnbury Castle. On the Monday ride up Morris fell in Devizes and trained home, and Douglas Smith reached Maidenhead in 7 hr. 5 min. before pushing on 114 miles to Oxford against a "roaring tempest."
- Members' holiday mileages: A. Lloyd's 147 miles from Walthamstow through Colchester and Ipswich to Stratford St. Andrew and back, ending in a snowstorm near Chelmsford; R. B. and S. G. Hough's 286 miles by Reading, Bath, Warminster, Salisbury and Bournemouth; Oliver Thorn's Newbury–Hungerford–Goring circuit; and the 230-mile tour of A. H. Koch, Alison and Hindley by Savernake Forest, Amesbury, Stonehenge, Salisbury, Romsey and Winchester.
- Bank Holiday racing notes: last year's scratch men fared badly, Auster of the Speedwell taking the Coventry final and Moore, the One and Twenty-five Mile Champion, only second in the Leicester three miles. De Civry won the Fifty Mile Professional Championship at Leicester but was outpaced by Howell over ten miles; A. R. Sheppee of the Hornsey B.C. becomes B.U. Chairman and G. P. Coleman its Official Timekeeper; and Buckley took the mile handicap at the L.A.C.'s first Spring Meeting at Stamford Bridge in 2 min. 54⅖ secs.
- A single long letter, "A Note of Interrogation," from A. W. Oman, protesting at J. S. W.'s Latin and Greek valentines in the Gazette. She reports failing to find anyone, solicitor, physician, barrister or schoolboy, who could still construe Latin, offers her own dictionary-assisted renderings (including "Procum bit you my boas"), and fears equations and logarithms will follow. The Editor replies that every L.B.C. candidate must speak six languages, three of them dead.
- The Porcupine's gossip: the N.E. introducing the Captain to Chingford Hill and High Beech; a "defensive treaty" between the N.E. District Captain and the Editor to dismount at the foot of every hill; J. R. Walter's first prize for the Club at Taunton; a member elected on the 12th and District Captain on the 22nd; C. Newman riding up Marlborough Hill without a swerve; H. H. Sherriff riding twenty miles after his accident; and the growing crop of legends along the via sacra to Bath.
- The Captain's sanctioned list under Rule 40, which forbids a member representing the Club at a meeting without permission. Runs from 14th April to 15th September and includes the B.U. Five Mile Bicycle and One Mile Tricycle Championships at Birmingham on 7th July, the Ten Mile Tricycle and One Mile Bicycle Championships at the Crystal Palace on the 14th, the A.A.A. Championships at Lillie Bridge and the Fifty Miles Bicycle Championship at the Crystal Palace.
- Two machines from H. H. Sherriff of Holly House, Mortlake: a strong 48-inch "Challenge" roadster for a learner or first season at £3 or in exchange for bound volumes of Bicycling News, and a 50-inch "Norwood" by Wm. Keen with bent handles and ball bearings to both wheels, cost over £18, price £7.
- A string of "That …" squibs: McCullum seen on two wheels again, the Bath Trial to be hotter than ever with all the cracks running and the President going into training, the N.W. Captain having arranged a fair wind and ordered a "sixty" accordingly, and District Captains blackballing any inn not furnished with breakfast cups.
- Reprinted from the Kentish Telegram: Palmer Dalton was rowed out at five in the morning in Mr. Porter's galley "Undaunted" and rode a mile and a half over the Goodwin Sands, which proved harder and smoother than a road until a gully stopped him. He carried a bundle of the sand back to London, watched through telescopes by the keepers of the light ships.
- Contributions must be addressed to the Editor, L.B.C. Gazette, 85, Eastcheap, E.C., bear the author's name, be written on one side of the paper only, and reach the office by 6 p.m. on Tuesday, 10th April.