Vol 6, No 9
Articles in this issue
- The Editor states that the latest hour for reception of copy for the “Gazette” is 6.0 p.m. on Tuesdays.
- A leader on the duties of the Captaincy, disclaiming any “Captain at Home” sketch or catalogue of past holders from the archaic period when the honour was actually ridden for; it sets out the attendance at Race Meetings, General Meets and the Annual Dinner, the early rise at Bath on Whit-Monday to despatch the Road Trial men, the discipline of the Committee room and the weight of correspondence over the Oxford and Cambridge matches, concluding that the model Captain should be conservative to the backbone and, like a Bayard, “sans peur” and “sans reproche.”
- Captain Ashley W. Barrett asks all L.B.C. men to support the meet with the C.U.Bi.C. and O.U.Bi.C. on 19th May, recalling the 65 men sent to Dunstable in 1881 and noting that the Town Hall has been engaged and the University men need not leave early as they did at St. Albans.
- Captain Barrett's instructions to competitors: notify the Hon. Sec. by 9th May of the day of arrival at Bath so rooms can be taken at the “White Lion,” a bicycle van on the 2.30 train from Paddington on Sunday 13th, complete road-riding costume required, the Whit-Monday timetable from the 6.30 call to tea at the “Milford Arms” at six (2s. 6d., warm baths sixpence), the 100-mile course by Devizes, Marlboro', Hungerford, Newbury, Reading and Maidenhead, four route hazards between Bath and Melksham, and the still-unfilled timing stations at Devizes, Hungerford, Reading and Slough.
- The list of 29 names received for the Whit-Monday trial, from W. K. Adam and J. W. Alison to W. Wyndham, with an asterisk marking former medallists, G. F. Beck, L. B. and H. R. Reynolds, R. B. Hough, O. Thorn, E. A. Weeks and C. Wigan.
- A short appeal from Captain Ashley W. Barrett for volunteer timers, telling old medallists they will find it a grateful task and future medallists a sure stepping stone to success.
- E. S. Price repeats that the meeting falls at the Crystal Palace on Saturday 16th June, a half-crown day with tickets at 1s. 6d. from Committee members, and lists the five events now that a Two Miles Open Handicap has replaced the One Mile, with a 2s. 6d. entrance fee for all but the District Challenge.
- Members are urged to sell tickets among their friends for the Club's small profit on each; the comparative statement shows a shilling gained by buying at 1s. 6d. through the Hon. Sec. rather than 2s. 6d. at the Palace, railway stations or other agents.
- R. M. Gruggen, District Captain, calls for a muster as good as Halliford's for next Saturday's run to Thames Ditton to meet the S.E. and W., leaving Kingston Station at 4.30 p.m.
- District Captains' reports on 28th April: in the N.E. the D.C. was late for the third time running and Kelsey and Lloyd rode to the “Orange Tree” at Havering by Woodford Bridge and Chigwell Row without him; the N.W. mustered only Tulloch, Williams and the D.C. over 18 heavy miles by Hendon, Harrow and Pinner to Rickmansworth, where the treatment at the “Swan” was so uncivil that the District will use the “Dragon” next time; and the S.E. took seventeen men through rain and mud from Croydon and Blackheath to the “Amherst Arms” at Riverhead, W. C. Oswald riding the whole way on a bad knee.
- The tabulated meets for the coming Saturday, when the N.E., N.W., W., S.W. and both S.E. divisions converge on Thames Ditton, with no official run on 12th May and the Dunstable General Meet with the O.U.Bi.C. and C.U.Bi.C. on 19th May.
- Notes on the new C.U.Bi.C. meet card taking in Haileybury, Baldock and Bedford, the Cambridge trials on 26th May and the Inter-University race at Oxford on 5th June, the C.U.Bi.C.'s purchase of a double tricycle and its time-medal standards of 3 min. for the mile and 33 min. for ten; then the racing at Kennington Oval, where long-start men swept the mile heats and Hay of the Queen's Cycling Club won the final off 135 yards, Gaskell held the ten-miles cup in 42 min. 9s. from Prentice of Ipswich, and at Stamford Bridge Leeds took the two miles handicap off 250 yards.
- Gerard F. Cobb's §16 gathers up the remaining rides from Lucerne, the Alpnach Bay round by Sarnen and Kerns, the Sempach circuit, the 80-mile Langenthal round and the two roads to Aarau, then describes his 1880 run from Lucerne to Bale in six hours twenty, with notes on the lake and river baths, the ascents of Pilatus, the Rigi and the Mythen, and the value of walking a bicycle up and down before waiting Swiss horses; §17 takes the road to Zurich by Cham, Metmenstetten and Birmensdorf, praising the “Baur au Lac,” its beefsteaks and Chianti, Capaul's pastry shop in the Central Hof, and the Enge station shortcut, while deploring the tram-demon in the streets.
- R. M. Gruggen, District Captain, defends the S.W. District against J. S. Whatton's charge that its attendances are “hopelessly bad,” citing page 26 of the 1883 Blue Book: 21 men in the S.W. averaging 6 per meet against 6.37 in the W. and 14.13 in the much larger S.E., the Editor adding a bracketed doubt as to whether all six were men. A second letter from H. R. Reynolds, jun., of 18, Fenchurch Street, asks the Committee to reconsider substituting a two-mile open handicap for the popular one mile on 16th June, fearing the loss of twenty or thirty entries when two other meetings clash.
- “Porcupine” notes Cassell's Our Own Country describing Bath, that Mr. Barrington the Bath bicycle manufacturer will rise at three on Monday morning to make repairs, the new District Railway branch from Hounslow, F. L. Adam's Crystal Palace accident proving less serious than first reported, a verse “Two Stable Remarks” lifted from the Detroit Free Press, and the N.E. District Captain's talk of resigning over his persistent lateness.
- Under Rule 40 the Captain's sanctioned list runs from the Lincoln C. and F.C. Sports on 12th May and the Scottish Games at Stamford Bridge through the C.U.Bi.C. trials and the Inter-University races at Oxford to the London B.C. races at the Crystal Palace on 16th June and University College Hospital at Stamford Bridge on the 19th.
- W. A. Smith of Savernake Cottage, Mill Hill Road, Acton, again offers his special 52-in. Humber, built to his own specification for touring and of extra strength, at £15 with ball treadles or £14 with ordinary ones against a cost price of £21 15s.
- All 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 Editor by Tuesday evening if immediate insertion is desired.