Almost from the first, motorcycle magazines played a central role in the evolution of motorcycles and motorcycling; writers in newspapers and general interest periodicals were also fascinated by this novel form of transport. Here are some of the more engaging yarns I've come across in half a century of browsing.

From The Wheelman's Almanack and Diary of 1881
Any number of articles have been written predicting bikes yet to come; this one is unique in my experience, dating as it does from motorcycling's prehistory.

"Why you were asking me the other day, Ted, as you were pumping compressed air into your bicycle engine, if it was a fact that my fastest pace on country roads was only fourteen miles an hour, thirty years ago. Certainly, and a good pace too, and above the average... But now one can purchase a Godiva Gas Phantom for two pounds, guaranteed to go thirty miles an hour; or an American Air Cleaver propelled by bottled sunlight at over thirty miles an hour. Or again, that what-do-you-call-it? – that one-wheeled Coventry Machinist Electric Roller, ten feet high, which can be driven fifty miles an hour. Why, I was so delighted with the first I ever saw that I got on it at midnight and rode round a church early all nght! I had a small lamp suspended from the axle, and the flashes of it on the nickel-plated whel so fascinated me as I spun round and round with wild delight that I cried out to the old tombs to give up their swiftest ghosts and I would outpace them all!
No, no Ted, a change has come o'er the scene. When I was your age it took me an hour and a half to go to Sunderland and back by train. You did it in one hour on your Armstrong Athmospheric Roadster. When I think of all this I cannot help wondering what we shall get to: I suppose we shall fly!"


Petrol, steam or electric?
When the first motorcyclists were looking at the first motorcycles they faced a bewildering choice – not between manufacturers, of which there were only a handful, but between technologies. How would you like to sit on top of a boiler?

The motor cycle has been developing in France almost concurrently with the automobile. By 1895 there were several on the market, the first in date being the Millet with four cylinders [I think it was five – Ed] revolving round the rear hub.

Then came the Dalifol steam bicycle, which ran with wonderful smoothness; but the system was not altogether conducive to the comfort of the rider, whose feet rested on the furnace, and the chimney, into which he occasionally dropped pieces of coke, rose conveniently above the top tube right under his nose, while he had to stop every few miles to replenish the water tank...

Mr HO Duncan introduced that equally wonderful Hildebrand and Wolfmuller bicycle... but very few seemed to have the acrobatic skill necessary to mount the machine. The desire for pacemaking bicycles induced Pingault to devise his electric two-wheeled machine, but batteries of accumulators did not prove satisfactory on bicycles, and electricity has gone the way of steam.

Our first breakdown
by ‘The Half Engineer’
The vehicles change but the arguments remain the same – and if you've tried to fix a breakdown in front of an appreciative audience you'll know just how these unfortunates felt. 

The machine we were travelling on was a quad of well-known make, but being in the antediluvian days of 1899, was only provided with a 2¼hp air-cooled engine manufactured by De Dion-Bouton and Co, Paris, which at that time was considered amply sufficient. The crew consisted of a gallant captain of militia and ‘the half engineer’ who in his early youth had been articled to an eminent firm of marine engine builders. The object of our journey was to “meet the spring”; this being the poetical way in which the captain (who had been somewhat of a minor poet during his Oxford career) put the fact that we were travelling down from a grey and rather depressing little Lancashire town through the heart of beautiful England to the fir-clad town of Bournemouth.

We had, with a lot of pedalling and some pushing, managed to reach Worcester, where we had slept the night, and we were bowling merrily along the road between that town and Gloucester when the tragedy came to pass. Up to this point a considerable amount of comedy had taken place in the shape of disputes between the crew as to the right position of the mixture taps. The fact was, each thought he could drive better than the other; so much so that on the quad, as is so often the case at sea, a very considerable amount of friction had been engendered between ‘the deck’ and ‘engine-room’ on this subject.

No one, therefore, will be surprised to hear that on the engine beginning to flutter like a wounded bird, or what is technically known as misfiring, just as we were descending a gentle slope, the captain, who was luxuriously lolling back in the front seat, reading a newspaper, turned round to the engineer (whose watch in the saddle it happened to be), and said, in a rather irritable tone of voice, “Now then, you’ve got that gas tap too far advanced again!”

This greatly irritated the driver who, besides considering himself ‘the expert’ of the crew, was also aware that for the past few minutes he had been trying every available combination of gas an air with no result, so, without another word he stopped the engine, jumped down from his saddle and replied, with some warmth, “Get up then, and try to drive the confounded thing yourself!”

The captain, without more ado, ascended to the driving seat, altered the taps to his fancy and pedalled vigorously. The engine responded in a lame duck sort of fashion and stopped in about a hundred yards; more pedalling, a slight spurt on the part of the engine, and then – full stop! The captain got down and stared vacantly at the engine. So did the ‘expert’. Here was a nice state of affairs. To the owner, the motor was (with the exception that he could work the taps) a sealed box of mysteries, and to tell the real truth it was not much less so to the engineer, as, though he had got a fair knowledge of the steam engine, with the gas engine he had scarcely any acquaintance whatever. However, not wishing to give himself away to his superior officer, he assumed an air of wisdom and, pulling off his coat, strode up to the engine.

A few seconds later a yell smote the air of that spring morning. It was only this: accustomed as he had been to the lagged or heat-insulated surfaces of steam, he had incautiously rested his hand on the nearly red-hot  flanges of the cylinder, and he at once began to moralise very rapidly on the curious anomaly that what the steam engine designer tries his utmost to keep in, the petrol man does his utmost to get rid of!

We may here mention that this moralising was accompanied by a great deal of what he afterwards explained to the captain was “highly technical language, very much used in marine engineering”, but which the latter evidently did not understand; at least, he made the somewhat irrelevant remark that it reminded him more of their adjutant on a field day than anything he had heard for some time. In addition to which he evinced a decided lack of sympathy at his companion’s mishap. Indeed, to put it plainly, he was highly amused; but the humorous side of the thing did not appear quite to strike him when, a few minutes afterwards, he managed to short circuit himself on the accumulator while attempting to carry out a lesson in testing the ignition, which he had received from the expert where the machine was made.

His yell was even louder than the engineer’s, and it became his turn to become amused. To cut matters short, we found that a large piece of insulating material had broken off the end of the sparking plug and had dropped into the cylinder, where it was being churned into small bits, these pieces being drawn into the combustion chamber by the suction of the exhaust, and so preventing the valve of the latter closing onto its seat.

But worse was to come. On trying to take off the cylinder head we found to our dismay that there was a ‘drunken thread’ in one the nuts of the studs attaching the head to the cylinder. The captain, being a strong man, was sure he could shift it. Fortunately the second hand remembered from past experience that “force is no remedy” and that their only chance was to get to a blacksmith’s, where they could procure some means of heating the nut, so that the expansion of the metal would cause its threads to override those on the cylinder stud.

It was a case of get out and shove – not a house to be seen, and over two miles to the nearest village. To bring matters to a climax, in addition to comedy and tragedy, broad farce now made its appearance. This came in the form of a small tax cart propelled by a dilapidated-looking white quadruped in which were two men, the driver being a long, rather Yankee-looking man, the other occupant fat and comfortable, not belying the looks of, what we afterwards found out to be, his walk in life, a coachman. The driver, as we also learnt, was a local character and billsticker from a small town near by, who had invited his friend to have a day off, which it appeared they had been filling up by taking a driving tour round the different houses of refreshment in the vicinity.

As these were the early days of motor quads they looked upon our calamity as a heaven-sent form of amusement. Anyway, they hitched up the horse to the nearest gate, sat down on the hedge side and commenced to make very free and audible comments on the situation in the broadest of Worcestershire dialect, and accompanied  by roars of laughter. This so roused the captain, who was terribly annoyed that the breakdown of his cherished motor should form a cause of hilarity to these two – “confounded fools” he termed them – that, against the advice of the engineer, he went up to the driver of the car, and, in his most superior ‘Oxford manner’, bade him to begone forthwith!

On this there followed one of the funniest conversations the engineer ever expects to listen to. First of all, with a bland, and, it must be confessed, beery, smile, the billsticker enquired of the captain whether the high road they were both on belonged to himself or Queen Victoria? Then, as no reply was returned to this question – unless an angry snort could be taken as such – he asked “what amount he” (the captain) “would throw in if they could arrange to swap his old horse and cart for the quad?” It was only by the forcible intervention of the engineer and the fat man hat an appeal to the god of battles was prevented.

In the end the billsticker proposed that we should leave what he termed “that blooming contraption” in the ditch and get into his cart when he would drive us to the Red Lion, an inn situated hard by. Here, he assured us, we should be able to obtain some of the best ale in the district, to which he would be glad to treat the crew of the quad, and added that his horse would tow that blessed whirligig thing as well.

The mechanician would most willingly have accepted the latter part of the billsticker’s offer, as those who have walked a quad a mile or two will understand; but no, the aspersions cast on the captain’s cherished machine had entered too deeply into his soul, and accordingly he refused both offers with scorn. After informing the engineer that his friend seemed “a bit hirittable this morning”, our billsticking friend drove of with the parting shaft that he would send a furniture van for us.

A Happy Land

At the closing run concert, Long Crank Marshall sang a song about a “Happy Land.”  Being fond of adventure, I obtained from him the exact address, and from here I am in a land where "coppers cease from troubling, and the perjury gets a rest”.  How I got here, never you mind.  It's all right.Cyclists and motorists in this ideal country have a gorgeous time.  They are looked upon as men and brethren; and not treated as criminals and vehicular pariahs, as you poor souls are in good old benighted, obsolete, manure manacled England, where any person with advanced ideas on locomotion is pounced upon by uniformed chawbacons, lectured at, and fined in and out of season, reason, and commonsense, by fossilised senile dunces with a hazy sort of notion that they can stem the march of progress by sitting on a bench and prating about public safety.
These mis-guided duffers apparently cannot see what is obvious to everyone not blinded by prejudice, namely, that they very class of persons they now delight to harass and maltreat will within a short period of time arise in their might and cause them and their rotten system to be swept away as a disgraceful, disgusting menace to the public at large.  But you must work your own destiny.  This is the place for me.  You go any place you like here.  On the other hand, you find yourself mistaken if you think you can bash in the front of a person's face with a bludgeon for five pounds.  A man who tries this on is scalped, and they take it off level with the shoulders. 

The Glorious Wide Roads
The main roads here are nowhere less than two hundred feet wide, beautifully graded with easy curves, which can be taken at full speed.  The surface is composed of some material resembling compressed cork with a dull green colour, so that it looks just like a freshly-ironed billiard table.  Needless to say, sideslip is absolutely unknown, and owing to the beautifully smooth surface pneumatic tyres are not used, but solid rubber tyres of wide crescent shape.  The cars are built with a system of spiral springs and rubber buffers, which make for luxuriousness and comfort to a surprising degree.
There are permanent longitudinal lines ingrained in the roadway, dividing it into four stripes of fifty feet each – two for up and two for down traffic.  The "slows" – that is, cars and cycles travelling at thirty an hour or under – have the strips next to the footway.  The two centre tracks are for ordinary traffic, which averages about 120 per hour.  The footpaths are fifty feet wide and railed off much in the same way as the promenade at Brighton, with the addition of a wire screen from rail to ground, so that it is almost impossible for any child, old person, or ordinary pedestrian idiot to dodge off the pathway suddenly under the wheel of a cyclist, and cause him to dismount profanely upon his nasal appendage.  There are gates in the fence, of course, in charge of officials who are old cyclists, and know the game.

Underground Subways
Cows, horses, dogs and other disgusting insects, together with any antiquated forms of conveyance, such as trams, ’buses, bath chairs, and ‘beano’ juggernauts, are relegated to the subways, which are of ample width, lighted with luminous paint, well ventilated, and in all seriousness very much too good for them.  Numerous sloping entrances to these subways give access to the surrounding country roads. 
No cycle or car is allowed to proceed at less than ten miles an hour on the main roads, but there are side bays for those desirous of stopping.  No lamps are needed after dark, as the track is illuminated throughout on the electric diffused sunlight system which forms a complete and continuous dome of soft, sunny daylight overhead.  When it rains there is no inconvenience – it is simply wet, not slushy; when it ceases raining, it is dry underfoot – not slimy glue; all owing to the excellent material of which the roads are made.

A Happy Land
The roads are in charge of engineers – not perjury experts – and they patrol in splendid cars which are in wireless telephonic communications with depots, so that in case of need a breakdown gang can be summoned from any spot, and parts being standardised to a marvellous degree, you have only to name the defective portion of your motor, and it is brought along by the workmen quite as a matter of course.  No waiting about for six weeks while they send abroad for something that ought to be made at home if the authorities would give the game half a chance, eh!
Every mile or so there is a fine bridge over the roadway, festooned in a most artistic manner with creepers and blooming flowers, and the sight is very beautiful.  There are no fogs, and here again London is all behind, as it was discovered in this part of the world at least fifty years ago that fogs were caused by the local emanations from beasts of burden, and since horses have fallen into comparative desuetude, fogs are almost unknown here.  Therefore, if you want to cure London of its fogs, get rid of all the horses and their effluvia (fugh!), and instate mechanical (and sanitary) locomotion.  Take a tip from me: The “wicked city” has got ten years in which to scramble up to date.  If she has not done it by then, there will be no London.

Penny-in-the-slot Petrol
Cars may not drop oil around on the floor, but have to carry fenders underneath to catch any overflow or waste discharge.  Petrol can be obtained anywhere on the slot system.  You stop at a standard – I don't mean a sewer ventilator, there aren't any here – connect a flexible tube to your tank, drop your money in a slot, and your tank is filled.  No screw caps, empty cans, funnels, spilling petrol up your sleeve, or any of that bother.
Goggles are not to be worn, as there are no flies owing to the avenues of stately trees lining the thoroughfares being treated at the roots with McGlue's patent injection, which has the effect of causing all the branches and leaves to exude a glutinous film to which all insects are stuck fast.  Birds, therefore, instead of dashing hysterically about, sit up aloft, with the tables always spread, and warble sweetly.
There is no dust, as the surface of the roads is not being perpetually polluted and pounded by horses, torn to rags by skidpans, or cut to pieces by iron-tyred vehicles.  Each section of road is being constantly covered by a car fitted with a huge kind of Bissell carpet sweeper, which wafts along and gathers up any foreign matter, and oh!  joy!! there are no water carts!!!

Silent Silencers
Silencers really ‘silence’, which may strike you as funny, but it isn't.  A simple piece of mechanism – which I wonder I haven't thought of myself – extracts the noisy part of the sound as soon as it is formed, and the slight residue which discharges into the air makes no more noise than a maiden's sigh; and as it passes over a scent sachet, you have a perpetual nosegay.  It's lovely!  So different from the paraffin-oil-stove sort of smell you are used to.
If by some oversight a pedestrian does leak into the roadway, you simply drive straight at him, scoop him into the mancatcher in front of the car, copy the number of his licence off the soles of his boots – all pedestrians have to be licensed to walk about; seems absurd, but at they might run into one another – and then whilst going at full speed, at the first opportunity, by pressing a spring at your side, you project him bodily into one of the overhead wicker baskets provided for the purpose. The attendant in charge gathers him in, dockets him, and dumps him into a rack.  He's then charged at the next Petrol Parliament (which consists of paid experts, and sits every day – not unpaid noodles who might sit all year round and not hatch any sense worth having) upon the count of “furious walking”.  If found guilty he is fined ten pounds and costs, has his licence to walk about endorsed and is confined to subways for six months.  A second offence means twice the fine and two hours’ infliction of the ‘bastinado’ [“punish or torture by caning on the soles of the feet” – Ed], but applied higher up than usual, and from the rear.
All this is as it should be, and I am applying for the post to wield that bastinado, as I owe those pedestrians one.

Going to the dogs
It's 1903. The Widow of Windsor is barely warm in her grave. The lads in their newly adopted khaki uniforms are back from their bloody tussle with Johnny Boer and maybe one or two of their wealthier young officers could afford one of these new-fangled motorised bicycles, some of which now boasted front suspension. This made all the difference because there wasn't a sqare foot of blacktop in the realm. City streets were surfaced with cobbles or wooden sets, made desperately slippery in the wet by the droppings of the horses which still dominated the road. Dobbin was understandably prone to bolt in the opposite direction on full throttle when startled by his first encounter  with a motorcycle. Dogs, on the other hand, seemed to see bikes as their natural prey – and a well-fettled dog could out-accelerate a well-fettled motorcycle. But just as dogs hated noisy, smelly motorcycles, well-chewed motorcyclists hated noisy, smelly dogs. They really, really hated them...

Some dogs are thoroughbred. These are no good as they get "lost" a lot. Others are half bread, half sage. This kind, when seasoned with pepper, is called sausages and has the same food value as venison, only you can come out in spots of a different colour.
The dog next door to me had kleptomania. I do not know if that was why he howled and yelped all night, but such was his objectionable custom. One day, after a more than usually musical night, he sneaked into our garden, stole a glass syringe containing prussic acid, swallowed the contents, tied himself into a sailor's knot, and froze stiff in the dustbin –on a summer day, too. A silly thing to do, as you cannot make a hearthrug of a dog that shape. Prussic acid is no good for dogs; it spoils them after they are dead, just when they might be useful.
Some people let their dogs run about the streets to play "dummy duck" with motor cyclists. This is a mistake, as they pick up bad language, broken ribs and other blemishes.
A drastic remedy
The proper place for a street dog is on one end of a rope four feet long. The other end of the rope should be fixed to the bough of a tree ten feet from the ground. This keeps the dog's feet off the damp grass and wards off old age. It may occur to you that this is a strange doctrine but if you work on the line indicated you will save money, as it costs a good bit to have a dog remodelled after it has been using a 3hp motor cycle as a toothbrush.
Some dogs are very thoughtless. When the man calls about the licence, and you are showing him a Norwich canary as your one and only pet, a furious barking in the next room is very disconcerting and entails your entering into a long explanation about your little son's power of mimicry, which takes up valuable time and requires great art, if there is no whisky handy.
Inquisitiveness is another canine feeling which is very obnoxious and engenders bad feeling. I was cycling in Dover once, when a huge mongrel with a wide fork crown and no mudguards to speak of was very curious to see whether my pants were lined with sanitary wool. When I left he was loudly calling out for the St John Ambulance Corps. I was sorry to bend that pump; it was a brass one, two feet long, and weighed 8lb. Celluloid pumps have no weight with dogs. A bulldog has a face like a Chinese idol put through a mangle, and should never be fondled with a naked tyre but patted vigorously under the jaw with the toe of a boot, preferably by deputy, as some expertness is necessary. If you miss your "pat", you dismount in his mouth and get hurt. If you catch him fair and square, kerplunk, with all your might, as I did recently, you gain that dog's surprised admiration and a week's holiday with a sprained ankle.
When a playful collie jumps up and tries to sit in your lap as you are bowling along, it is cruel to have a cobbler's awl tied to the end of a walking stick, and jab him in the ribs with it, and the niche you might have occupied in that dog's affections will be "to let unfurnished" if you act thus. It is better to spray him gently in the eye with an ammonia squirt, which acts as a capital germicide, and if you watch that collie you will observe him energetically trying to wriggle out of his skin backwards, which will make you feel good for a long time.
Always be kind to dogs – off the chain. Remember, pain hurts them, and it is a pretty tough job to stick a piece of meat back on your calf if the dog swallows it.
I have no use for, so will not mention, the astrachan-garbed retriever who flies down the carriage drive, bounds over the gate into the street like a roaring lion with d.t. and the devil's tattoo on the kettle-drum mixed, and cannons your better half out of the trailer into the interior of an astonished piano organ in the throes of a pathetic, but jerky, "Goodbye, Dolly Gray".
The most useful type
Then there is – or, rather, there is not – the "extinct" type of dog-the most useful of all. A mongrel, no doubt, but with gentle instincts and affectionate nature. You will remember the kind I mean. A faithful, beseeching look in the eyes, a fawning attitude, and an apologetic "sorry I am in your way" kind of air. A dog it was safe to leave to romp with the children, that would grovel on its stomach at a threatening gesture, and bolt in terror at a threatening shout. We miss this type. Why?
Because the police, with an eye to a soft job and easy promotion, have trapped every single specimen over a measured "quarter" and have led each one, tethered by a piece of grocer's twine, followed by a crowd of jeering urchins, into captivity, thence to be transferred in due course, with lamblike meekness, to another place, and we know them-as such-no more.
But something makes our thoughts go out to them at times, as we munch our morning snack of porkpie in the City, and we gulp down a sob, and a hurried draught of Bass.
A brief reference to the pet dog and I must close. If you are out cycling, and see in the middle of the roadway a little tangled heap of haywisp sort of stuff with sore eyes and a bit of blue ribbon tied round its neck like boatrace day, I warn you, apply both brakes, dismount, and go back at once to save further  trouble, rumpus, and nervous exhaustion. If you disregard my advice and go forward, upon your head be it. For what happens? The dog-for it is a dog, and not a sparrow's nest out of work-zigzags about in your path aimlessly. You dodge eight and a half times, then in alarm, because of your unpaid life assurance premium, you yell, "Hoo! burr-r-roosh!" and this is your undoing. There is a shrill agonised shriek, a rustle of drapery. The figure of a more or less Victorian maiden lady precipitates itself upon your machine, yourself, the dog, the heap of slush at the roadside, and the surroundings generally. Seizing your scanty locks in a two-handed grasp, she hugs them to her bosom, under the impression she has hold of the wretched poodle. Raising her tearful eyes skyward, she gasps, "Saved! my darling, saved!" and straightaway faints in your front wheel, oblivious of the triple fact that you are wearing your back wheel for a necktie, that her false front has come unstuck and is dangling forlornly upon your offside pedal, and, moreover, that she is sitting on that dog all the time; and then, when her darling's teeth, meeting in the fleshy part of her arm, advise her of the real state of affairs, she blames you for it, and not the dog-unkindest cut of all.
Avoid these pet dogs. They are wrong 'uns. I know it for a fact.


That rider was fantasising (well, that's his story) but some of his contemporaries were prepared to take direct action.

The daily papers last week reported a case against a motor cyclist who had used what is known as a cyclist's pistol to prevent an Irish terrier, which daily annoyed him, from rushing at his machine and endangering his life. 
It was stated in the evidence that the pistol, which consists of a tube and a rubber bulb, which is filled with a solution of ammonia and water, was charged with a fifty per cent. mixture.  The ordinary amount of ammonia which is generally used in this article is about ten per cent.  If the rider had confined himself to this, the dog would only have been temporarily, and not permanently, disabled. 
Surely, a man's life (even if he does happen to commit the heinous offence of riding a motor cycle or ordinary bicycle) is of as much value as the most valuable dog in existence, and riders, while excercising discretion, should be allowed to adopt some means of keeping these pests at bay.  In France most savage dogs are kept, and these are in the habit of making in a straight line for anything on wheels that they have never seen before, such as a bicycle, and the riders to protect themselves are often armed with small revolvers. 
We do not advocate anything as stringent as this, but we certainly think that no unbiassed magistrate would convict a rider for carrying a good horsewhip on the handle-bar, which he could slash at the dog, unless taken unawares.  These whips are carried by many motor cyclists in France, and are laid along the handle-bar in two clips which allow the whip to be instantly detached.


The Lord of the Highway
There are few bylines to be found in ancient magazines but I reckon the lunatic who wrote the guide to dogs also wrote this equally useful review of pedestrians.

According to a work on ‘Freaks of Nature’ the pedestrian of primeval days ambled around upon all fours. This statement may be true. It probably is not, but I believe it all the same. Nay, more; I would go so far as to believe almost anything of pedestrians. You may have noticed that the pedestrian of today has so far improved upon the habits of his ancestors as to walk upon his hind legs only. This is so that he may keep a sharper look-out for your motor cycle, and when you approach, spring into your path in several directions at once and finally, if his luck is in, reach a friendly lamp post, brushing a smudge of mud from the tail of his frock coat and hurling hieroglyphics at you. Meanwhile you are convulsed with joy because, being solicitous for his safety, you applied your brakes so suddenly that your back tyre has burst – just at the valve, too. Tut! tut!

How fashions change
Spillby, a friend of mine, is death on pedestrians. He rides a motor tricycle, at least he used to, but fashions change so rapidly that by the time he comes out of hospital ‘trikes’ may be quite out of date.
I am not in favour of spending money upon legislation for the total abolition of pedestrians, because if motor cars churn up as many as the halfpenny press reports to be the case, why it can only be a matter of weeks before they are nearly out of stock. No, I advise patience and moderation.

Pedestrian precautions
If measures were taken obliging pedestrian to give audible warning of their intention to acrobatically perform in the roadway, to carry a number plate by day, a red light in the rear after sunset, and to stand still when called upon by any person in charge of a restive motor cycle, our troubles would be alleviated considerably. Or better still, our legislators might restrict the perambulating pedestrian entirely to the woods and fields, and cause them in their own interests to be ‘hobbled’ by both ankles to two 56lb weights. This would tend to keep them out of harm’s way, and would have the advantage that if persons were required in the interests of science, say as obstacles in car driving competitions, or brake tests, or as ballast in trailer experiments, one could just apply to the Auto Club for a permit and cut loose a few pedestrians to choice.

A new tyre material
Further, bearing in mind the famine in rubber which is inevitably going to arrive soon if everyone’s tyres wear out as mine do, it was suggested to me by a particularly brutal person that under the hygienic and rural conditions above-mentioned, and given a suitable diet, the skin or hide of pedestrians would be found to form an idea material for making tyre covers.
Now, without taking this seriously, I must admit I have run across – both literally and figuratively – pedestrians, possessing to a remarkable degree the two chief characteristics of rubber, namely toughness and resilience.
An instance of this last week. He was round a bend in the road taking a photographic view. His head was under the black cloak, so I do not think he heard my approach. But I was interested to observe that, although the top of my engine was intensely hot, he sat upon it pensively for quite an appreciable time without any apparent inconvenience, which indicated toughness. In fact, it was only after I had regained full consciousness and clambered out of the ditch to reclaim my motor cycle that it seemed to suddenly occur to him that he was being branded for life.

A question of resilience
Then, indeed, he did indulge in a kind of fandango or hornpipe, but this might have been mere resilience. He was not sufficiently resilient, however, to bounce the price of a new pair of trousers out of me. No, my engine is no camp stool! Why did he not sit on his camera instead of using it for a sun bonnet?
Pedestrians are really very trying! Look out for little Reggie who is waiting round the corner to lasoo your legs with his hoop, which he will bowl straight at you. If he is in form – and he always is – the best way is to get a bystander to take a file from your toolbag and cut the hoop through in four places. This is a quicker way of getting disentangled than undressing yourself or taking the machine to pieces.
Do not hanker after the acquaintance of the man walking ahead reading the ‘four-o’clock winner’ because he has just discovered that his ‘fancy’ finished last. He weighs 18 stone, and if you smite him in the spine he will chastise you with his boots, and you will require to hire a light van to convey to the nearest railway station the demoralised incoherent Japanese puzzle which is at present your beautiful snorting steed.

The man with a silk hat
When a sudden shower comes on you will find the gentleman in the tall silk hat who rushes across the road for shelter, understands his business as a pedestrian thoroughly, and charges your tank broadside on with the steel stick of his lowered open umbrella, and your petrol annoints the earth forthwith. He makes no apology. Why should he? He has fractured a rib against your handle-bar and the fact that you have dismounted upon the back of your neck and bitten an inch off your toungue is to him the merest detail, especially as it will cost him twopence for the loan of a step ladder to descend from the top of the shop sun blind where he has taken refuge – more resilience.
M’yes, the average pedestrian, like most ancient institutions, requires revising and bringing up to date. But, fellow motor cyclists, pray take him in hand gently or you may be misunderstood, as I have been ere this.


My first motor bicycle ride – my feelings and impressions
by an old Cyclist
Do you remember your first time? This pioneer’s first ride dates back to a time when motorcycling was as much an art form as a science, but the roller-coaster of emotions will surely strike a chord with 21st century riders.

My initial experience took place on a fine afternoon in June last, when, at the invitation of a kind friend, I borrowed his machine – a brand new imported mount bearing a good reputation (vide advertisements) for reliability and speed powers. It was with a beating heart and a joyous and expectant mind that I started. There was no doubt about it: learning to ride a motor bicycle was as easy as rolling off a log; it was mere child's play, in fact, and as I dashed along I laughed sarcatically and said rude things about those strange individuals who were so fond of writing to the papers about the troubles of an embryo motor bicyclist... I whistled to myself, and the busy little engine, as it throbbed away, seemed to beat time with the melody...
I nearly ran into a boy – boys are so stupid – through pushing the ignition lever forward instead of pulling it back. I comforted myself that an oversight of this type was the natural outccome of a want of experience.
Once clear of the town all went as well as the oft-quoted marriage-bell. The sun was shining brilliantly... the birds were caarrolling sweetly, and everything (including myself) seemed to combine into one harmonious whole, with the pulsing motor as its centre. Yes, life was worth living. Said I: "Out upon those scurvy knaves who pretend they can find no joy on earth. But a panacea is at hand even for them. The must motor cycle. It is the finest, best and most glorious invention – ." Great heavens! What was that? The healthy throb of the engine had suddenly ceased and in its place there came fiftful sobs. Confound it! The machine was actually stopping... After trying the effect of retarding and advancing the spark several times, and then finally having a tug at the compresssion lever, and finally experimenting with both levers at the same time, I thought it advisable and expedient to switch off the current...
I have it, I thought. The engine is not being sufficiently lubricated otherwise it would not be so hot. I examined the lubricating tap. Lo! And behold! The tap was off. I immediately put this right and I gave a sigh of relief. I calmly lighted my pipe and took a seat on a mossy bank that was handy, and passed a few minutes in quiet reflection, allowing the engine to cool.
Eventually I began to think it was time to move. Hang it, why do people break down on hills? Pedal as I would, and manoeuvre the levers as I might, I could not make the engine puff.... with my Sherlock Holmes powers of divining things I had deduced that even a motor bicycle could be a bit of a nuisance... my machine was no longer motor driven. It had resolved itself into a common pedal-pusher, and a heavy one at that.
I examined the contact breaker and the fat spark told me that my trouble was not due to faulty ignition. The world did not seem quite so joyous and peaceful as it did half an hour before. I felt depressed in spirits, and even the signing of the birds – how they did chirp away, to be sure! – irritated and vexed me.
Suddenly a happy thought occured to me. Such things come to even the dullest of us. I wonder if my petrol supply is all right... why on earth had I not thought of this before. With feverish haste and with trembling fingers I unscrewed the milled stopper at the top of the petrol tank and gazed into it... the tank was as dry as a bone. If words could have hurt the person who had lent me his machine his death would have been painfully sudden. I was perfectly stranded and quite two miles from the nearest shop at which spirit could be obtained. Confound it. I wish I had never seen the blessed machine.
I philosophically told myself that it was no use crying over spilt milk – who except the cat ever does? – and so I started on the return journey. It was all right riding downhill, but along the level I did not find it a particularly charming pastime, whilst uphill – no words can express my feelings.
I eventually got my tank replenished and, feeling confident  that all my troubles were now over, I again set forth. What a change, and how beautifully the machine went along... My spirits had risen above their normal pitch and the soft breezes cooled my burning cheeks. Gradually a feeling of exhileration seized me, and I even burst forth into song. In my wild excitement I extended the accelerator to its fullest limit and got up top speed. A policemen looked at me, but, fearing the exertion of running after me, he did not impeded my progress. What cared I in my perfect abandon for the speed regulations?
My train of happy thoughts came to a sudden stop – so did my engine. Dash these motors; why are they so fickle in their behaviour? Bang again. The motor was giving strange and uncanny explosions. Presently these ceased. Surely it could not be the petrol this time. No thee tank was nearly full andd the lubrication seemed satisfactory.  Perhaps the ignition had gone wrong, I thought. Said  I: "I will see if I can get another 'fat spark'." I lingered on the words "fat spark" lovingly, for I am fond of technical expressions, and tthe owner of the refractory machine had fully impressed upon me the advantages of such a phenomenon and the particular corpulency of his spark. With eager hands I took the cover of the contact-breaker and started playing with the switch on the handle-bar. Ye gods! I could get no spark at all – not even a thin one.
The perspiration on my forehead turned to an icy dampness – a cold shiver ran down my bank and my teeth almost chattered. What was I to do now? I was no electrician, and did not know anything at all about the wires. I could not even distinguish a high tension from a low tension wire. They were as mysterious to me as the wires on a telegraph pole.
I gave another despairing glance at the contact-breaker. Then I groaned, for lying on the ground was a small piece of spring steel blade with a platinum point on it. The trembler blade had snapped and there was not a spare one in the saddle-bag. I really believe I swore. Never again, I raved, would I get astride a motor bicycle. It was the devil's own invention and was merely sent to try the patience of poor suffering mankind.
I pished the machine into a ditch and sat down by the side of the road and ruminated upon the situation. I was some miles away from home and there was not even a house in sight. My heart was wrung with anguish. I felt done.
I threw off my coat and then took off the driving belt. I had made up my mind to pedal the thing home. It was slow – very slow. And then, pedalling as hard as I could over a rough piece of road I managed to kick the left pedal out of the crank. Perdition seize motor bicycles.
With a feeling of disgust, I flung the machine against a bank. I was feeling abominably hungry, whilst the quenching of my thirst would have meant at that moment a small fortune to the proprietor of a fully-licensed house.
I would sit and wait for a cart. I sat and sat – and sat. I fumed and then I tried the pleasant occupation of pushing a hundred and fourty pounds of tyred steel. And it was uphill too. Every muscle in my body was aching, my hands were in blisters, and my tongue was swollen and as hard as a brick. In a fearfully exhausted condition I managed at length to reach the top and, panting, I sank down by the side of a ditch and closed my eyes.
I fancy I must have nearly dozed off, for I finally came to my senses by hearing the rumble of a cart. The joy of that moment! A shipwrecked sailor on a raft out at sea never experienced such an exquisite feeling of thankfulness as I did at that moment.
The cart was driven by a venerable man who had behind him some cans of paraffin and other wares from which he had been serving country customers. There was no room for the machine on board. I felt almost sick. Then a brilliant idea – the conception of which I flatter myself was a real stroke of genius – struck me. I would mount the machine, hand on to the tail of the cart and get the old fellow to tow me home. This he agreed to do, and although at times I felt as if my arms were leaving my shoulders, I managed, as dusk was beginning to fall, to reach home. How I blessed that good-hearted old man!
Did I give up motor bicycling? Of course not. I am now the proud possessor of a machine made by a well-known manufacturer, and would not desert the pastime for untold wealth.


Do it yourself
This enthusiast, also writing in 1903, took the most direct, if not the simplest, route to acquiring a motorcycle – buy a bicycle, buy an engine, make everything else in your kitchen (but don't tell the missus). Piece of cake, but watch out for that molten lead.  

Having first diligently read up everything that I could lay my hands on with regard to the theory and practice of the motor engine, I purchased a neat, well-made engine of the Clement type, which I came to the conclusion was the one most suitable for the purpose required. My next endeavour was to find a suitable cycle frame on which to fit it, so I showed my purchase to a practical man, and informed him that I wished to have a suitable bicycle made for the engine, also that it was my intention to place the latter inside the diamond – that is to say, to fix it to the top side of the downtube. In due course (I may mention that this was in two months' time) the bicycle was delivered at my house. I immediately proceeded to fit the engine on to the frame; but on doing this, to my horror I discovered that the driving pulley of the engine was on one side and the driving rim on the rear wheel of the bicycle on the other. How this mistake could have been made  I am not able to say. The only way out of the difficulty was to have the back fork stays extended and the driving rim on the rear wheel reversed. It must be admitted that this was a very bad beginning; but I am glad to say it did not dampen my enthusiasm.
My next work was to construct a tank to hold the petrol and lubricating oil and also the accumulator. I cut out patterns to fit the frame, after doing which I ordered some sheets of tin about the thickness of the ordinary Huntley and Palmer's biscuit box. I ordered this because I reasoned that if I were to use thick gauge brass or iron, I should not be able to work it with the defective tools I had; and I am quite certain from later experience that I was correct in this.

Prehistoric Implements
My readers will not be surprised at this latter statement when I give a list of the tools at my disposal, viz, a watchmaker's vice, a pair of very blunt shears, and a linen draper's rule, not forgetting a 2½lb copper soldering iron. Indeed, after my first experience I made a vow to myself never to attempt to make another tank. However, I managed to finish it at last, but at the expense of acid-stained hands and burnt fingers. I must say that I was very proud indeed of the feat I had accomplished, but was not quite so proud after testing the two compartments with liquid; after all the trouble I had taken neither was even water-tight. Well, I had hardened my heart, and was not long before I had the lubricating end of the tank open; but not being aware of the correct method of getting soldered joints apart, the only thing I could think of was to place the tank bodily over the gas stove in my kitchen. This answered the purpose splendidly (but I may mention that my wife was not at all pleased, as she informed me that the cooking stove was for cooking , and not for melting tin). Anyway, I discovered the leak and managed to repair it.
I may here mention  that on measuring the capacity of the tank, which I had neglected to calculate when making my designs, I found that I had made it much smaller than I had intended, and that it would only hold a very small supply of petrol. However, this was soon remedied, as I punched sveral holes through the division separating the petrol compartment from the one which I had intended to use for the lubricating oil, thus making a much larget petrol chamber.

A Tobacco Tin comes in Handy
But here came in another difficulty. I was left without an oil chamber, so to provide for this I soldered to the side of the tank one of Messers WO Wills and Co's half-pound tobacco tins, and was very pleased to find that it answered its purpose admirably. Having fixed my tank to the frame, I next proceeded to make an attempt to bend the copper tube which leads from the spray carburettor to the inlet dome. In my attempt to do this the only tools I had at my disposal were a saddle pillar (which I found just entered the tubing) and a discarded pastry-roller pin; but try it as I would I could not get it to bend. At last I did maanage it but as the same time I produced a fearful kink in it; indeed I spolit two tubes in trying to do this.
Here came in a great blow to my pride, as I had at last to call in outside assistance, my first idea having been, if possible, to do without this entirely. However, there was no help for it, and much against my will I was compelled to ask the advice of an expert, who told me to fill the copper tubing with lead, and afterwards bend to shape. As soon as I knew this hint there was no further difficulty, and I only wondered why I had never thought of such a simple method before. Simple method indeed! I did not find this to be the case when attempting to empty the lead from the copper tube after I had bent it to the required angle. For the purpose of doing this I had recourse to my old friend the gas stove, but in this case thought it better to wait until my wife and household had retired for the night.
The trouble I had was brought about in the following way: For the purpose of containing the molten lead, I placed two coffee tins to receive it, and, stupidly enough, forgot to examine them before doing this. They are generally machine jointed, but in this case I found to my cost that they were soft soldered, for as soon as the molten lead had filled one of the tins there was a terrific bang, the bottom dropped out, and with a fearful splutter several drops of lead splashed on to my bare arms, where they stuck like glue. In spite of my fears of what the superior powers of my household would say at my using the gas stove for a second time, when I had been expressly forbidden to do so, I could not help emitting a loud yell of pain.

My Wife to the Rescue
My wife came downstairs to know what was the meaning of the uproar, with the result that I did a record out of that kitchen, and am convinced that had any member of our rural police force be present, I should have been summoned for furious running! My work after these preliminary difficulties were conquered became faairly plain sailing.
When fitting the ignition gear I fixed a saddle-pillar clip to the copper tube which carries the gas to the engine. this proved a capital point on which to fit a lever for the purpose of advancing and retarding the spark. The other minor difficulties I experienced are really not worth relating. I am glad to say the machine I made is now going well, and I consider worth the time and trouble I spent on it; but, on the other hand, I really would not advise any novice to take up motor cycle building unless he has at his command a sufficiency of appliances for carrying out such work; also that he is not obliged to consider expense, and last, but certainly not least, that he is possessed of a consideraable amount of patience and fortitude.
Taking everything into consideration, I do not think I saved anything by becoming my own builder, and when I am tired of my present mount I shall proceed straight to a prominent agent or manufacturer and invest in a completely finished machine in all its glamour of fresh enamel and nickel-plating.

To ride Pegasus
With more than a century of motorcycling behind us it’s hardly surprising that we’ve become blasé about the power we control. This rider, writing in the first years of the 20th century, is all too well aware that a motorcycle is an awesome thing.

He was a man among men who first thought to balance himself on two unstable wheels that he might treble his rate of progress through a too-slow moving world. Use has made the wonder less, but the struggling beginner must surely wonder and admire that first hero who set out to conquer the apparently impossible, and gave us the bicycle. All honor to him; he would have been a motorcyclist nowadays.

This was much; but more was needed to suit the pace of the twentieth century. In olden days, when some notorious criminal was to be disposed of, it was the pleasant custom to tie his limbs to wild horses, and drive them to the four points of the compass. So he was torn to pieces. It was a terrible force, terribly used; but a standard motorcycle can double it. And this strength, this awful power, that unfettered would smash our puny frame to fragments, we imprison in steel walls, balance on a couple of flimsy wheels between our knees and make our slave.

We call this latent terror into being by the crooking of our finger and ride it whither we will; flashing, like Mercury with winged feet, along the highway; racing the jealous winds to leap tumultuously into the heart of Nature.

Are we not great? Clods may trudge the roads, degenerates may loll in motorcars, but only the supermen, the salt of the earth, dare tame and ride Pegasus!

Yes, I must certainly treasure this photograph. In years to come, when grandchildren read of the heroes of old and sigh for the days of romance, I can bring it forth and say with pride: “I lived In those days – I was a motorcyclist.”

The End to End Run
It was all wonderfully primitive, which makes some of the exploits recorded by pioneer daredevils all the more extraordinary. Take the 'End-to-End Run' from Land's End to John o' Groats (or t'other way round to take advantage of the extra daylight). Even with a modern bike and riding gear and making maximum use of motorways it's not to be undertaken lightly. Now imagine setting out on an unsprung bicycle with, say, 2hp on tap. No blacktop roads, no phones, no streetlights, no all-night service stations – not a pastime for the faint-hearted. Inevitably, Ixion was in the thick of it, as he recalled some years later.

At first, to cover the ground, irrespective of time, was a gigantic achievement. Henry Sturmey, first editor of  The Autocar, achieved the distance on an American Duryea car. Hubert Egerton, of Norwich, in September, 1901, blazed the trail. Quite incredibly, he coaxed a crude and precocious Werner motor cycle, rated at 1¾hp, over the whole distance – 900 miles in four days nine hours, an average speed of approximately 9mph. The journey was designed simply to show that a primitive motor cycle could cover the most famous course in these islands. A single mechanical stop near Bristol lasted ten hours.

Silver goes for Gold

Here’s Tom Silver’s account of his record breaking end-to-end run which appeared under the wonderful Boys’ Own heading, “From John-o'-Groats to Land's End on a Motor Bicycle in 64h 29m – The Record Breaker's Account of his Ride”. Over to you, Tom.

I have thought it well to give particulars of my ride northwards and the failure because it undoubtedly had a great effect, so far as my health was concerned, on the return journey.

After resting a few days, I started the return journey from John-o'-Groats at midnight (Thursday morning) in fine weather, the roads being in a sad condition, grass growing between the stones, the road here being merely a loose track.

Berriedale Hill is something terrible, as is well known to tourists who have been in that district, yet the engine took it in splendid style from bottom to top. This hill, as also another very much like it – Muir of Ord – is a terror to all cyclists, for the reason that it winds with very sharp and dangerous bends, so much so that when riding up one part of the hill you look over your elbow to see the windings of the road you have already passed over. The sides are precipitous, and a fall would mean a drop of several hundred feet.

I had a fine run to Meikle Ferry. Reaching there in the early morning unfortunately I could not find the ferryman, which caused me a delay of two-and-a-half hours. The running after this to Inverness was fairly good and without incident. I was now approaching the spot where my northward journey came to an end, but as I reached it in broad daylight I was able to get over the rough section by wheeling the machine.

A splendid run was made from here to Edinburgh, and on to Galashiels; but at the latter place, when darkness set in, I unfortunately took the wrong road, and went twenty-seven miles out of my way, going via Melrose, instead of via Selkirk. While wandering around this part I dismounted to repair a puncture. Feeling drowsy, I fell fast asleep and slept for some hours, and when I awoke the sun was shining brightly. However, I made up my mind not to fail a second time, although I had still 477 miles to do.

I made good time to Preston, and during this portion of the ride I somewhat recovered my strength and spirits. The road from Preston to Warrington, through the factory district of Lancashire, was something shocking, even to remember, the roads being very bad and a large proportion of them paved with granite sets. Warrington to Worcester was done at a fast gait, but just outside the latter town I struck the rain once more, and on arriving at Bristol (my own home), through a hitch in the arrangements there was no provision made for a supply of petrol for my machine or any sustenance for the rider. Rather than delay I pushed straight on through the wet, after obtaining petrol, but without partaking of any food, as such cold viands as were available at that early hour of the morning I was quite unable to touch. The rain continued heavily over the Mendip Hills all the way to Exeter.

Shortly after leaving Exeter the downpour of rain ceased but the roads were soft and rutty, which state of things continued to the end of the journey. I must say, however, that I rode the last 120 miles quite mechanically, being, of course, extremely tired; and to add to my misfortune, about 10 miles from the journey's end I had a puncture, which, owing to my worn-out condition, took me more than half an hour to repair. Finally, I reached Land's End at 4.29 on the afternoon of Saturday, June 20th, and very thankful I was to receive the assistance of Mr Urry, the official time-keeper, in effecting a dismount.

It may be interesting to note that the machine and engine (a 3hp Quadrant) are the same that so successfully carried me through the Glasgow to London non-stop ride.

The weather was all against him, but notwithstanding the drenching rain and the dangerous condition of the roads, he performed remarkably well. In his first 12 hours he placed 238 miles to his credit, which was 70 miles in front of the record. Unfortunately, he was overtaken by an accident on approaching Warrington. When within five miles of this town his motor skidded as he was rounding a bend and he came down heavily.  He was badly bruised and shaken, and a pedal crank of his machine was broken.  Notwithstanding this reverse, he pluckily remounted and rode to Warrington, where he was advised to discontinue the attempt, which he reluctantly did. Up to this point he had covered 257 miles in 19h 25m and was 92 miles in front of the record. He rode a 2¼hp Vinco (Minerva engine), manufactured by Messrs WR Heighton Ltd of Peterborough, and it stood the test remarkably well. 

It may be mentioned that Mr. Holmes has had a most successful career on the cycle path, from which he has now retired in favour of motoring.  Altogether, he has won no less than 45 first prizes (including 11 scratch races), 16 seconds, 13 thirds, four lap prizes, and two fast time prizes, making a total value of close upon £350.

Mr Holmes volunteered for active service during the late war, and was accepted. He was shot through the leg at Nitral's Nek, and although he was confined to hospital for several weeks, the injury, happily, left no ill-effects.  He is an enthusiastic motorist and intends to have another try to break the Land's End to John-o'-Groat's record.

Motor cycle monstrosities
Putting a small engine into a heavy duty bicycle is one thing – but there will always be riders who simply aren't satisfied with small, sensible motorcycles. Why, some even demand four cylinders...

Picture to yourself a motor cycle fitted with four huge cylinders, long raking handle-bars, exaggerated petrol tanks, hideous silencers, etc., such as made its appearance to compete in the hill-climbing competition at Gaillon last season, not to speak of half a dozen other weird monsters of the same type and similar eccentricities, which also turned up on the same occasion.
No one who has even an elementary knowledge of what a motor cycle should be imagines for an instant that the construction of machines of the above kind will help on the evolution of motor cycles for practical use; but supposing a machine of this description had managed to rush up to St. Barbe Hill in the quickest time on record, what flaming advertisements would appear in the Parisian dailies, puffing up the speedy nature of the brute, and very possibly referring to the supreme and excellent qualities of the construction, with a view to quietly foisting on the market an entirely different article.
The 1903 catalogue will include the list of competitions won on the “Bluff” machine, amongst which will appear, “First Price – Gaillon Hill-climbing Contest, in record time, beating 40 h.p motor cars.”
The 1903 private purchaser will be in total ignorance of the monstrosity that in reality “did the trick,” but the manufacturer has obtained his point on the way of utilising a freak machine which no sensible man would ever purchase, to advertise his wares!  In all probability the  1 3/4hp motor bicycle placed upon the market would not get halfway up the hill without the assistance of laborious pedalling, and in all probability would stick halfway  The owner would have to dismount and push, or, possibly, call in the assistance of the small boys, who for a few pence “represent extra horse power for weak motorists” on Sundays and fete days!
Taking another view of the situation, what mechanical or commercial value can be placed upon these monstrosities, used as they are upon a straight mile or kilometre, or, what is an even worse test of their efficiency, upon the cemented racing paths.
They certainly do harm to the sport, and even more to the pastime, from the mere fact that the spectators, seeing a motor bicycle, perchance for the first time, get quite a wrong impression as to what the ideal machine should in reality be for daily use and for touring purposes.  The non-spectators or likely purchasers are apt to be led astray by “ficticious advertisements” which are often the outcome of these competitions.
Such machines may produce a “new sport”, but no one can say such monstrosities used in competition do good to the industry in finding out “weak points” in the motor or in the machine, in order that the manufacturers may rectify the defects before the standard model is manufactured.
We all admit the beneficial results of the experience gained from the big long-distance races – Paris-Bordeaux, Paris-Marseilles, Paris-Berlin, or Paris-Vienna.  These celebrated contests made the motor car what it is today – a practical touring vehicle – as all kinds of defects, such as bad material, wrong designs, and inventive fads, were brought to light or remained en panne by the roadside, for the ingenious to ponder over their errors or to mature ideas and inventions for alterations and improvements.
These are well-known facts, which must appeal to all practical minds, and the importance of them is realised throughout the industry.  It appears to me that the practical and businesslike way in which most motor car races, contests, or competitions are usually carried out should not be made an excuse for the absurdities of the motor cycle monstrosities.  The cycle industry has been in existence for a great number of years, and from time to time important improvements have been introduced, until today a pedal bicycle or tricycle is an instrument thoroughly well known and appreciated in every little detail.  The bicycle of today has undergone many modifications, and is the outcome of amy years experience gained not only in the drawing – office and workshop, but from races and competitions on the path, road, and hill-climbing contests.  Numberless fads, inventions, and also monstrosities have seen their day and disappeared, but the accepted design of bicycle has always proved its superiority upon the racing path and road.
My point is, we all know what a bicycle is, and we also know that the horse-power of motors must attain a standard marketable limit, which is generally supposed to vary between 1 1/2 h.p to 3 h.p; consequently it is quite unreasonable to find firms turning out racing monstrosities of the description named in this article, which do a considerable amount of harm to the sport, pastime, and insdustry.  As previously mentioned, the public are led astray by fictitious advertisements, by falce announcements in catalogues, and the motor freaks in question create a wrong impression generally upon spectators at race meetings or competitions, exactly like the tricycle within these last few years, which has been almost “killed” in France by over-powered motors.
About eighteen months ago, it will be remembered, a certain inventor appeared at Gaillon for the hill-climbing contest with a terrible elongated – looking vehicle fitted with an enormous motor, and did fast times up the hill, beating legitimate racing cars and other competitors.  The “Inventor” responsible for this awful fad was led astray by the publicity given at the time to such an extent, in fact, that he called upon me at my office.  To my great surprise, the object of his visit was to ask me in all seriousness if I considered it worth my while to sell the patents (?) to an English syndicate.  Never was I so astounded, as it did not say much for the inventor’s idea of British commonsense.  A racing man recenty appeared at Dourdan upon a 32 h.p monster tricycle to attempt to beat the world’s records, as an advertisement for a certain make of motor; but for all practical purposes, what would such records prove?If photographs could be secured of all these machines – we only give a few – and reproduced, it would give the public a good idea of how some firms obtain these so-called “records” with the aid of these “unsightly brutes.”  In other words, it would prove that widely – advertised records have been secured by machines upon which no sensible man would care to risk his neck, and the Paris – Vienna race showed monstrosities were not necessary.  It would be a good thing if the automobile clubs would resolutely refuse to time officially all monstrosities, and to discourage the use of such machines, and in fact, disqualify them from taking part in any official competition.  Their prescence upon any occasion is absurd and ridiculous, and, personally, I should blush to have to manipulate them.
 

A Joyful Trip – Some Misfortunes That Might Have Been Avoided

The tri-car in question was fitted with a 6hp twin engine; owing to the trouble it gave, the two-speed gear had been removed, together with the free-engine clutch (which formed part of it) some time previously: my experience might well have happened with almost any belt-driven tri-car.

On the Sunday preceding the extraordinary one of which I write I took a lady friend for a ride in the afternoon, intending to return about 8pm, but after a very pleasant run we were stranded and had to leave the tri-car at Burford Bridge, being ourselves to patronize the London, Brighton and SC Railway. The next chance I had of fetching the erring motor was the following Sunday. My passenger on the previous run, being almost as keen on the tri-car as I am, expressed the desire to come down with me, wait whilst I repaired the motor, and then ride back with me.

Going down by the 10.30am from Victoria, we arrived at our destination in nice time for lunch. I decided that I would repair the motor directly we had finished our meal so as to get all our worry over as soon as possible. (truly what a blessing it is for man not to be able to foretell the future.) Shortly after 4pm I said that the tri-car was ready, but when I tried to start it the back cylinder resolutely refused to fire. This was soon traced to a faulty sparking plug, and mitigated with equal rapidity. The I thought we should run about a mile along the road to Dorking and back to make sure that all was right, have tea, and prepare ourselves for a pleasant run home. We ran round Dorking and everything went like clockwork, so a little before 5pm we stopped for tea. As it would only take us two or three hours to run (save the mark!), we did not hurry ourselves. After a very enjoyable meal we got the tri-car out, and lighting up the lamps made a start some time after 6pm and went about 500 yards when the engine times; this was followed by that quickly throttled roar which says the belt is off. After replacing the belt I found that beyond everything being damp, owing to a heavy dew that had fallen while we were finishing tea, there appeared to be nothing wrong, so after a few minutes’ delay we made another start.

This time we got close on 400 yards when what should I see but a venturesome spark cheerfully jumping from the high-tension cable to a tube of the frame. But, quick as I was, I was not quick enough to prevent another ominous roar, so for a second time I got off to replace the belt; but this time I was better pleased, for I had found the cause of our trouble. After replacing the belt, I wound my handkerchief round that high tension cable, and again we started with unabated zeal. How beautiful it was to hear the continuous buzz of that engine! I leant forward and told my friend that we were all right now, but hardly had those fatal words passed my lips when – what was that? Surely not another misfire? Only too true! Then another, and – for a third time I got off to replace the belt. This was getting monotonous and as the belt was rather slack I tightened it up, so that if the engine did misfire again the belt at least would not come off. Our next was a more successful start and after binding up another part of the high-tension cable where I saw sparking, this time with the aid of a handkerchief belonging to my passenger, and accompanied by the unwelcome tune of a fair percentage of misfires, we made the lights of the Burford Bridge Hotel. We were both absolutely decided that we would not stop at this identical place for a second time. If we only reached Leatherhead it would be something; so, after stopping to take on board another gallon of petrol, we commenced to climb the steep hill which is the next best thing one meets on the Leatherhead road. Owing, however, to the engine misfiring, the machine would not take it, so, after several fruitless endeavours, I began to push the motor up, and my companion, with extraordinary cheerfulness, jumped out and started to help me.

Even should the unenviable task of pushing a tri-car uphill not have fallen to the lot of the present reader, I think that he will not doubt that it is one of the quickest and most infallible means by which one may physically exhaust oneself; it if has fallen to his lot, he will know. After half an hour’s strenuous labour, with my clothes wet from perspiration, and my breath rendered conspicuous by its absence I found that we were at last nearly at the top of the hill. Asking my badly-used passenger to reseat herself in the fore-carriage and hoping that I should not turn her out again, I enjoyed a short rest while I flooded the carburetter until the petrol ran freely out of the air inlet! Pushing the moot slowly along, I heard the tremblers of both coils work perfectly; so, shoving it until it was well under way (it was still slightly uphill,) I then dropped the exhaust lifter, and – the back wheel skidded on the compression! So I had a little longer rest. After a couple of minutes I had another try, and this time I did succeed in starting the engine before I lost my slightly-regained breath. Oh! The pleasure, the care-about-nothing content that it gave me just to sit again on the seat and feel that the engine was really pulling me. I gained a little hope, a little breath; I said hurrah! And – the belt broke! I lost my bit of breath. After another 10 minutes, during which I put a new link into he belt, we were again ready to start, or, at least, to try to; however as we now had to descend the long hill through Mickleham, we got along fairly well, but the misfires became painfully frequent, and I know that we should have to do something before there was any hope of our being able to climb the next hill.

As we had just turned the sharp corner at the bottom of the hill and begun to go along the level, when the engine gave a few feeble explosions and stopped, with the petrol feed pipe broken out of its union to the tank! Luckily, we lost very little petrol, but to crown our misfortune, when I had removed the pipe and union, I succeeded in dropping the latter into the long grass by the roadside! It looked very much as if the engine had stopped for the night, especially as we had not a spare pipe and union with us; however by a great stroke of luck, my passenger discovered the old one with the aid of our headlight, and, by binding string round the pipe and then screwing up the union, I succeeded in checking the flow of petrol until it was only a slow drip.

The misfires, however, were not to be stopped so easily, and although I discovered a place just where the high –tension wires passed under a part of the frame where the insulation of the able was completely worn though, and bound it up with the aid of a third handkerchief (also belonging to my passenger!) I did not succeed in reducing the misfiring sufficiently to prevent our having to breast the next hill in the same ignominious fashion in which we had scaled the last.

After putting two mire links into the belt, and getting the tri-car up the next and final steep hill into Leatherhead in the same exhausting manner in which we had climbed the preceding ones, I found myself in Leatherhead High Street.

As far as visible, we shared Leatherhead with a solitary policeman and a cat. I looked at my watch – it was 11.30 pm and we had been over five hours on the road from Dorking to Leatherhead! Leaving my passenger in the tri-car, I went down to the station, only to find. As I feared, that the last up-train that night had gone, and thus vanished any idea of sending my passenger on by train.

I next gained the information from the policeman that they had a telephone close by, so I knocked up a waiter and asked him whether I could use it and if he would get some refreshment for my passenger whilst I did so. After some difficulty in obtaining the right keys, he brought me to the telephone, and, leaving him to see what he could procure in the way of refreshments I returned to my friend, and found her in conversation with a lady, in front of whose house I had apparently stopped the motor, and who, seeing our misfortune, had come out and very kindly asked if she could not cut us some sandwiches, or in any other way help us. Having thanked her for her kindness, explained that they were getting something for us at the hotel, and agreed with her that our position was very unfortunate, we said goodnight. At the hotel my passenger had some refreshment whilst I got through to her people on the telephone (a proceeding that occupied 20 minutes) and told them that we had had a good deal of rouble with the motor, but were quite all right and were coming on as fast as possible.

I then swallowed a very large whisky and soda. How fine it was! I had another! I could have drunk a dozen, but considering their size, I thought it best to restrain myself; and as my friend was in another room, I went to see how she was faring. I now heard the conversation that she had had with the lady whilst I had been knocking up the people at the hotel. During my absence, the good leady asked her whether we were married, and my friend with ever-ready humour at once answered “Not yet”! to which the good lady had said “it is unfortunate, isn’t it? It is bad enough when you are married!”

It certainly was unfortunate, and it was a dead certainty that unless I succeeded in effecting a rapid and very considerable change in the running of the motor we should be on the road for the greater part of the night. What could I do with my passenger? Had it been a closed car I should not have minded much, but to be out on the road all night in an open tri-car was likely to prove a trying experience for any lady, and to say the last, my position was not an enviable one. However, the chief thing she seemed to worry about was the anxiety that we were causing her people, and now that I had succeeded in telephoning them she was ready to make the best of things, and was not going to let her spirits be damped by our troubles. Somewhat refreshed, we now left the hotel. I next made the pleasing discovery that I could not start the tri-car in Leatherhead High Street, owing to the gradient, so I took it a few yards back along the Box Hill Road, which runs downhill into the High Street considerably, and when I had got round this the engine was running so slowly that I had to stop it to save the belt. I was determined that I would not stop the engine next time if I could possible help it so, with the policeman stationed at the next corner seeing that the road was clear, I once more pushed the motor back up the hill. Opening the throttle and flooding the carburettor we started off wish a rush and, running fairly fast down to the High Street, I cut off every inch of corner that I could, first running close to one kerb and then the other. Directly we were on the straight again we quickly gathered speed again and commenced to climb the High Street in grand style when there was a bang and a whirr, and part of the belt was wound three times round the engine pulley! It took some time to extricate it but after a struggle I succeeded, and had just commenced to replace the broken link when our headlight calmly ceased to officiate.

Owing to its having been in use for over six hours, instead of about one and a half or two, as should have been the case, the carbide was exhausted. I had to knock up the people at a garage to obtain a fresh supply, and half an hour elapsed before our headlight regained its pristine brilliance.

In another two minutes I had finished the belt when, looking at my watch, I found that an hour had passed since we left the hotel, which was just about 100 yards down the road. After another fruitless endeavour to get the motor properly started (if only the clutch had been left on when the two-speed gear was removed!), and spending some time in trying to stop the misfiring by a fluky arrangement of the high-tension wires, and as it only seemed to be wasting time taking the motor back, I turned my passenger out and commenced to push the tri-car up the hill. I could well have forgiven my friend had she begun to worry now. But did she? Not a bit. She cheerfully put a hand on the fore-carriage and started to help me. We had a rest at every lamp-post and after struggling over what seemed an interminable distance, I was fairly winded, as one by one, I reached each of these longed-for goals, and the higher jump the hill we went the further apart the lamp-posts seemed to get. After struggling with that motor up half a mile of hill, which seemed like six, I saw ahead of us the top. After 10 awful minutes of final effort, I reached it. My passenger got in the fore-carriage, and I sank onto the platform. What would I not have given just to lie in the gutter and go to sleep? The desire was frightful in its intensity; I had to stand up and lean on the saddle, for I knew that if I sat but a few seconds more I should forget my troubles in slumber.

Presently, when once again I breathed with comparative freedom, I flooded the carburetter, switched on the current and tried to start the motor, but the back wheel skidded on the compression. I rested a minute, then, pushing until it was going fairly fast again, I dropped the exhaust lifter and again it skidded on the compression. With a great deal of feeling I said “Confound the thing!” and stopped with a pant to regain my breath. My friend asked me if she should get out, and I am afraid I told her rather sharply to stay where she was. She just turned her head round and said: “Ah, that is the whisky and soda talking!”

My third endeavour to start the motor was successful, and for some distance I just sat on the seat and let the engine do as it liked, so long as it did not slow down. I had not sufficient energy to advance the spark a little. For about a mile we got on fairly well, the ratio of the explosions to the misfires being about five to one; then the misfiring grew considerably worse, and I stopped to endeavour to reduce it. It still seemed to be the high-tension side that was giving all the trouble, and as the high-tension cables, which were about 3 ft long, were wound round and round the frame from the coil case at the back of the engine, I disconnected them and laid them straight along the platform, away from the frame.

By Jove! That did it. The engine veritably leapt away, and how great was my joy when, in answer to the spark lever, the intermittent explosion merged into one continuous roar. It was indeed great, after all our trouble, to see the hedges fly past and the moonlit road slip from under us as it did. This was not to last, for we had scarcely covered half a mile when the misfiring suddenly started again. I found that the high-tension cables had jerked off the platform, and that one of the bad places was resting on a part of the frame, so with the aid of some string I suspended them in mid-air from the brake lever, so that they could neither touch the platform nor the frame! They could not possibly short-circuit like that, and again we went away in grand style. We were now nearing Epsom, and I told my friend I really thought that we should not have any more trouble. But again I spoke too soon, for presently those dreaded misfires recommenced. At first they were not frequent, but they grew steadily worse and worse until, just as we reached Epsom, the engine slowed down and stopped altogether. I disconnected the sparking plugs and tested them. I got a beautiful spark every time from them, so I came to the conclusion that it must be the Longuemare carburetter and I soon discovered that the flap in the air inlet had fractured right across. What on earth would happen next? Was this a little game that Fate was playing with us? Now that the flap was missing it was hard to get a strong enough mixture to start the engine. At the third attempt I got it to run, and it went all right so long as I kept the carburetter agitator pressed down but directly I let it go the engine misfired and stopped. I found that with my aerial system of wiring, and by keeping the toe of my boot on the agitator in a certain way, I could get the motor to run well. Looking at my watch I found that it was 3.30 am. Poor passenger! Whatever time should I get her home? I was thankful that I had been able to telephone her people. Ewell was passed, then I had cramp in my leg through keeping my foot on the carburetter; moved my boot and stopped the motor, and so had another struggle to start. With the exception of this and four or five similar stops, we had no further trouble, and I reached my tired-out passenger’s home at the hour of 4am, 25 miles in 12 hours!

The following story, which dates from 1909, demands a little background. Staying with a military theme we turn to a fantasy about an attempted invasion. Inevitably, as it appeared in the Green ’Un, the hero who saves the day is a motorcyclist. But what the hell is a military fantasy doing in a bike mag? Jumping on a bandwagon, that’s what. ‘England Invaded’ stories had appeared by the hundred since the 1870s, no doubt inspired by the way the Prussians had given the French such a swift kicking in the Franco-Prussian war (check out the Michael Moorcock collections of some of the best of them, England Invaded and Before Armageddon).

The Battle of Dorking is a particularly dark example (we lost) – HG Wells’ 1898 classic War of the Worlds is basically a remake with Martians replacing Germans (we lost until the Martians caught colds).

In this yarn the unnamed invaders attack the South-East, implying they’re French, but  as threats go this was already out of date. In 1903 Erskine Childers published The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service, a rattling good yarn with the Jerries as the bad guys (the 1970s film is worth a look).

Moorcock’s anthology title Before Armageddon reflects the sobering fact that within a few years of being inspired by such tales of derring do, a generation of young men were to discover the horrors of mechanised warfare. The fact that this yarn is set in 1916 is in itself rather sobering.

Anyhow, enough of the background. Go make yourself a cuppa and settle down for a rattlin’ good yarn.

In Touch with the Invaders
Some Thrilling Episodes, Showing the Possibilities of the Motor-bicycle if this Country were Invaded.

The following wireless message was received at the War Office on the 30th July 1916: “Sandyness Bay, Sunday 30th July, 1916. Time, 4.25am. Fifteen thousand foreign troops with all impedimenta landed this morning one mile west of above point. All telephone and telegraph wires cut in neighbourhood. Foreign fleet with transports are anchored within 500 yards of coast. Sea calm, slight fog.”

Motorcyclist Jones of the Kent Cyclist Battalion, who had finished the remaining drops from a tin of ‘Shell’ into the tank of his twin, screwed down the cap and threw the empty can into the corner of the garage. He had heard the news of the landing of the enemy from his drill-instructor, whilst the British fleet were executing some elaborate manoeuvres in the Irish Channel.

Shortly after Jones was speeding round the town, regardless of red triangles, to the homes of his comrades, warning them to appear at the drill hall at 7am. Dress, full marching order, water bottles filled, rations for 48 hours, rifles and capes on machines, blanket and waterproof on cycle carrier. Thus Jones rode like fury, for as a trained military cyclist he knew that time was very precious. It took him just under an hour to complete his work of alarm. Arriving again at the drill hall he reported himself to his instructor to await further orders. So, after despatching several telegrams to his company’s officers, Jones returned home to complete his own equipment.

Monday, 7am – all was hustle and bustle at the hall. Everybody was as keen as mustard and anxious to be in touch with the enemy who had so audaciously stolen a march on old England at such a critical time. The roll-call numbered six officers, 12 motorcyclists and 380 ordinary cyclists. Their neat khaki tunics beneath the cartridge-filled bandoliers looked smart and becoming. At 7.15am they were despatched to the scene of coming action in small companies of 40 to 60 men. The motor-cycle section were the leading files and were sent on with all possible speed to locate the position occupied by the enemy. All went well for a time, with the exception of one machine which constantly misfired and in consequence soon lost ground.

The first 20 miles was covered in 35 minutes. Suddenly above the din of muffled exhausts came the sharp sound of rifle shots, unmistakable close – in fact a bullet entered the oil tank of one fellow’s motor and the hole had to be stopped up temporarily with a lump of clay. A halt was made at once and cover obtained behind a tall, thick hedge at a bend of the road, which spot gave a good view of the road to the right and left. Here a council of war was held to discuss matters.

To proceed further along the road meant certain capture, so one motorist was despatched off to warn the cyclists in the rear, and another four were detailed to scout the neighbourhood on foot.

An hour elapsed before any news of the enemy was forthcoming. At last a despatch came to hand. It was from Jones and ran thus: “200 foreign cyclists with machine guns halting at the 67th milestone on London-Dover main road.” Following this came several more purporting that the enemy had practically laid a line of troops from the South to the North Foreland and were rapidly marching on to Dover, Canterbury and Chatham, sweeping everything and capturing everybody before them. It now remained for these few cyclists to harass the enemy to such a degree that part of our regular army could be brought by motorcars and trains from Aldershot and Salisbury Plain to resist the enemy’s attack on London.

A maxim gun section was hurried off to protect the coastline and road at St Margaret’s Bay. Thanks to the new motor roads, under the direction of the Road Board, punctures were unknown. Other sections were sent to Ashford and on to Faversham. The proportion of combatants was about 150 foreigners to four English. So it was quite obvious that we could not expect to hold out for any length of time.

Presently Jones returned from Canterbury pulling a very long face and limping slightly in the right leg, caused by a stray bullet glancing off a steel pillar and taking a lump of flesh from off his thigh. A bandage was speedily placed over the wound and he resumed his duties with renewed vigour, using his motorcycle whenever possible so as to resume the strain on his injured leg.

Maidstone was made the headquarters of the cyclists and a line of patrols was organized from Chatham on the left to Rye on the right, covering the retreat of the motorcyclists, who now occupied Faversham, Chatham, Ashford, and the little tone of Hythe. The day wore steadily on and all efforts to successfully delay the advance of such overwhelming numbers were useless.

Jones thought for a few moments. “If I could only raise the alarm at Chelmsford and bring the Essex Battalion into action we might be able to give the enemy about '50 rounds of nickel at dawn’ on the following day.”

Notwithstanding his wounded thigh he approached his commander for the necessary leave of absence. The officer wished him luck and a safe journey, and also hinted at promotion at the termination of the war. A few minutes spent in overhauling and lubricating the motor was thought necessary, and punctually at five o’clock a start was made from a spot five miles west of Canterbury.

“I had a narrow squeak at Harbledown, Jones reported later, “in running into two of the enemy in the main street. They, however, were quite taken by surprise, for at that moment out came my revolver and one was left dead on the tarmac surface. Faversham soon appeared in the distance but I was hauled up before entering the town by some of our scouts. It was the work of a few seconds to explain my errand to the OC, and amid many cheers I vaulted into the saddle, opening at the same time the throttle and extra air to the fullest extent.

“What a ride it was – no slowing down whatever. Up and down hill my twin took me without a murmur. Rushing through the deserted streets of Sittingbourne, with eyes glued on the open road in front, on, on and on, never slacking an instant. I gave the spark lever another notch and the speed increased perceptibly. I was now afraid of overheating. As a precaution I cut out the silencers and dosed the crankcase liberally.

Up Hartlip Hill I simply flew, and then on to Rainham. A few minutes more elapsed, and Jezereel’s Temple loomed in sight. This remarkable, unfinished structure marks the approach of the steep incline into Chatham. Arriving at the top of the hill I reluctantly closed the throttle and retarded the spark slightly. Several more of our company were faithfully guarding the main roads at the foot of the hill, and after establishing my identity I was allowed to resume. Over Strood Bridge, I passed through the town and in a few minutes I was steering the well sprung front wheel towards Gravesend.

“A speed of over 50 miles and hour was attained in places, which speaks volumes for the perfection and reliability of the modern motorcycle. At Gravesend a turn to the right was made, leading to the ferry. Fortunately it was still in working order, so placing my machine on board we embarked for Tilbury.

“Twenty-four miles now separated me from the headquarters of the Essex Battalion of Cyclists, and the clock chimed out the hour of seven. Pulling out a map of Essex I made a rapid mental note of the road to Chelmsford. Remounting my faithful twin I resumed my journey to Horndon-on-the Hill, Langdon Street and Billericay. So far nothing further happened of interest except for an abrupt halt to allow a herd of bullocks to cross the road.

“Once through the town I let my motor take the ‘bit between its teeth’ as it were, and she simply romped away out into the open country again. Another six miles and Gallywood was reached and passed. Now only a league further to travel. Only a league; yes, but what a long three miles it seemed. The mileometer was reading 42.5 miles. Mechanically I raised and depressed the oil pump. With the throttle still open and a free exhaust I made for the centre of the town of Chelmsford. As luck would have it I had just turned into another street when I ran into a group of Territorial cyclists who were evidently discussing the war situation. I dismounted instantly, and rushing up to the surprised men I told them all the news and begged them to help in checking the advance of the foreign troops. Fortunately again it happened to be a drill night so I accompanied them to their spacious drill hall at a short distance off. Here I was introduced to Colonel Frenshaw, and after a few minutes talk he decided to mobilize the battalion. There was not much drill for the Chelmsford lads that night.

The light was growing pale, and the men of the 5th Company (Machine Gun Section), under the able leadership of Lieutenant Dalmeny, were feeling weary and tired after their long ride, towing the two .303 Maxims. Their destination was St Margaret’s Bay, and after posting several pickets in and about the village the remainder billeted at the only available inn. At midnight they paraded and marched off to their respective places under cover of darkness. All was still, and the lighthouse at the South Foreland had now ceased flashing. Once out of the almost hidden village one team took up a position commanding a view of the sea so as to frustrate a possible landing of the enemy from that quarter. The other commanded the roadway, with instructions to watch the railway line as far as Martin Mill Station, a hamlet about a mile to the north-east. Both positions were admirably suited for the purpose of attack and defence. Everything was now ready and dawn awaited eagerly.

Just as it was getting light and the moon had shed its last feeble rays a company of infantry was seen to be moving towards the left-hand gun team, marching briskly along the high road, innocent of their coming fate. The distance separating the two forces was one scarcely 900 yards. What awful doom awaited those ill-fortuned men. “Three more minutes and then open fire,” said the OC quietly to the men at the gun. “Right, sir,” replied the gunner. “Two minutes,” broke in the officer, and then a short pause. “At the enemy in front at 500 yards – rapid.” This order was repeated in a cool and collected tone by the gunner. “Fire!” shouted the officer.

Instantly there was a terrific volley of lead as the firing lever was pressed for a few seconds. In a very short space of time the road was in a pitiful state, bodies lying one on top of each other, ’mid shouts and cursing.

Fully 80 per cent were killed and wounded in less than five minutes. So much were they taken by surprise that numbers of them had not even lifted a rifle against us.

The right-hand team reported transports out to sea just off Deal, but no trace of the enemy.

Later in the day both our positions were attacked by a much larger force. Again the Maxims broke the silence, and again the enemy’s casualties were heavy. Clouds of steam issued from the miniature guns, and at times it was most difficult for our gunners to take good aim, especially now that the enemy’s rifle fire was getting uncomfortably warm.

It was nearly nine o’clock before the cease-fire sounded. We had lost seven men and 12 wounded whilst, as was reported later on, we killed and wounded of the enemy three officers and 237 men on that memorable day.

That night an attempt at landing was made by the enemy, under cover of a thick mist, to disembark troops at St Margaret’s. Slowly the large troopship could be seen, with the aid of powerful night glasses, coming as close as possible to the coveted shores. Within 200 yards boats were lowered from the davits, evidently filled with soldiers. However, we were quite ready to receive them.

As the eastern sky began to herald the dawn of another day the gunner on the right-flank maxim carefully trained his sights on the foreign boats. Then fixing the traversing gear with his foot and depressing the muzzle of the gun slightly he awaited with bated breath the signal. The light was improving. Already eight boats were fully manned. What a surprise we should give them. The first boat contained several officers with their staff, and as they neared our beloved land our cool and grim-looking gunner turned the crank lever over twice and gripped the rear cross piece tightly. “At the enemy in the first boat at 400 yards – rapid fire – commence,” roared out Lieutenant Dalmeny.

A hail of lead greeted the ill-fated boats and not one escaped alive. So terrible was the slaughter that the remainder hurriedly decided to return to their ship, which they did but not until three more boats were despatched to the bottom riddled with holes.

On board the enemy opened fire on us, but so completely were we hidden under cover, and their aim so erratic, that no great damage was done. At the end of another hour the vessel steamed away out to sea, having learnt a good lesson in a very short time.

Severe fighting throughout the county became general, and the men of the Kent Cyclist Battalion were often scattered and defeated in an unfruitful attempt to hold a railway or a roadway. The enemy was steadily pushing forward their attacking line, and already the following towns flew the hated flag, viz Canterbury, Faversham, Ramsgate, Margate, Deal and Sandwich. To London they certainly meant to get at all costs.

At 6pm Lieutenant Dalmeny received a despatch from Maidstone, the headquarters of Colonel Laverhill, commanding Kent Cyclist Battalion, asking him to come with all possible speed as the enemy were in large numbers in the vicinity and threatening every moment to swamp the town. Lieutenant Dalmeny mustered his faithful men and a start was made at 6.20pm. Evidently the war was getting a serious matter, and unless we were reinforced within a very short time a wholesale capture of the battalion would follow.

At 9pm the little party, amid wild shouts of delight, entered the county town to join Colonel Laverhill and the rest of the battalion, now numbering only 200 men.

Reveille sounded at 4am on the following morning and a combined attack was made on Ashford, where the enemy had commandeered several railway locomotives and rolling stock, evidently with the intention of entraining for London.

All that day skirmishing and long-distance sniping prevailed. A railway bridge was blown to pieces by our demolition party, forcing the enemy to alter their plans.

The enemy were still concentrating their forces in the town and by nightfall practically the whole of their forces were flocking in and plundering everything they could lay their hands upon. The cyclists completely encircled the town moving up and down the dreary, drenched roads, silently and swiftly mounted. The final attack must either end in absolute victory or defeat. The weaker must go to the wall.

Dawn broke at cast. An indescribable scene presented itself to the Kent Cyclists. There lay a heap of ruins in the centre of the town and men could be seen clearing the debris and using the largest timbers as bullet-proof shield or barricades for the injured. A volley from our rifles greeted the enemy with evident surprise. They rushed here and there for their firearms, but before they could muster a strong firing line dozens of the poor fellows met a well deserved doom. They swarmed the top windows and roofs of houses and poured a regular hail of lead from above. The fight still weighed in the balances. Who will win? Who will win? How bravely our fellows fought – time after time running into the very jaws of death in the act of saving a wounded comrade.

Steadily we were being driven back and our lines broken through. We were losing, losing fast. Our men were unable to hold out any longer under the withering fire of the foreign infantry.

Lieutenant Dalmeny was seriously wounded, but he was able to crawl out of range and take cover behind a haystack close to the main road to Chatham. He lay there thinking that the next moment might be his last, and then would follow the loss of his beloved comrades. Hark! What was the meaning of that peculiar sound borne down on a strong west wind? Purrrrrr, purrrrrr! It came nearer, and eventually the familiar sound dawned upon the poor officer. It was the throb of a powerful twin-cylinder motorcycle, possibly the rider carrying an important message to the front. Painfully Lieutenant Dalmeny struggled to the corner of the haystack, which was visible to anyone passing along the road. He took out his blood-stained handkerchief in readiness to warn the oncoming motorist of his danger. Would the signal be seen or would the cyclist enter almost certain death at the rate of nearly 50 miles an hour? Louder and louder the unsilenced exhausts sounded, and in a flash the machine came into view. Up went the warning sign, and next minute Lieutenant Dalmeny fainted.

Jones made his officer comfortable and told him that at no great distance down the road there were 520 men and officers of the Essex Cyclists’ Battalion and over 300 cyclists from the London Corps. He then took the orders to support the weak firing line of the Kent Cyclists.

Adjusting the throttle and raising the exhaust valve, he bounded into the saddle, released the lever and slowly advanced the spark as the speed increased. Three minutes later Jones was informing his superior of the news of the conflict – how the enemy were finding various outlets for their troops and forcing back the English.

How the Kent Cyclists cheered as the welcome reinforcements came up in the nick of time. Rush after rush was made upon the enemy. A maxim was brought into action. Soon the enemy found themselves hemmed in on every side. A railway truck containing 280lb of nitro-glycerine was shunted with terrific force into the beleaguered town and striking against an obstacle detonated with awful violence. A huge tongue of flame laminated the surrounding buildings, and soon all inflammable materials were started everywhere. At five o’clock in the afternoon the English made a final onslaught. It will always be remembered in the history of the cyclist battalions. The rush lasted barely eight minutes, but in that short time every man who failed to surrender was immediately shot down. This unexpected charge quite overcame the enemy, who thought it would have ended in an easy victory.

Needless to say, Jones was promoted to the rank of sergeant and now holds an important position in the Territorial Motorcyclists.

That ending reflects the social structure of the time – Jones saves the day but even in fiction there was no question of a battlefield commission for a chap from the artisan classes.

Back in the real world, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sparked off vigorous correspondence in the Daily Express by proposing the formation of “battalions of motors and cycles in place of the present artillery and yeomanry cavalry”.

The Green ‘Un, noting that the great man was “one of the earliest motorcycle enthusiasts who was often to be seen astride his Roc” expressed disappointment that he favoured “the formation of a cycle corps only,  when his scheme would appear to more especially appeal to the motorcycling community with patriotic opinions”.

While accepting Sir Arthur’s ideas about using “petrol and steam motors for drawing the bulk of the artillery” Motor Cycling’s correspondent pointed out that cyclists who had just covered 50 or 60 miles could hardly be expected to “fight a battle with a ferocious enemy, arising in all its might after a comfortable night’s rest”.

Instead, he asked, “why not motor-bicycle scouts – or even battalions? It is true that a good machine is expensive, but it costs no more than a war-horse, nor does it consume fuel when lying idle… just think which side you would back to win if one army had pedalled themselves 100 miles and the other had arrived at the scene of the action after a comfortable and invigorating spin on their motor-bicycles.”

He pointed out that riders from the volunteer 'Auto-Cycle Legion'  had “acquitted themselves splendidly” during recent army manoeuvres”, adding that, unlike horse-mounted cavalry, a motor-bicycle “painted in khaki or some other neutral tint  would defy the keenest glasses of the enemy… in an emergency one machine fitted with a carrier could convey  two people across country.

“And while on this subject the possibility occurs of a motor-cyclist winning the VC for riding up into the danger zone, rescuing a fallen comrade and carrying him off to safety amidst a storm of shot and shell, regardless of his life – and of his tyres!”

200 Miles in a Day
The great man left behind him many memorable yarns, including the following blow-by-blow account of a gruelling day’s run back in 1903. No blacktop, remember, and no petrol stations. Just bags of dogged determination and one determined dog.

For the purpose of demonstrating the reliability of the modern motor bicycle to an interested novice, I was deputed to attempt the formidable task of covering two hundred miles in the space of time betweeen the dawn and dark of a June day. On a journey of that length, and one which was covered in such a short time, scenery leaves on one's mind an even more blurred impression than an ill-focussed cinematograph; but some of the incidents I will attempt to describe.
The route selected was a severe one, being a circuit of Devonshire: From Barnstaple through Bideford, Torrington, Okehampton and Tavistock to Plymouth; thence via Ashburton and Newton to Torquay; across Shaldon to Teignmouth and Exeter; thence to Ilfracombe via Bittadon; and finally back through Braunton to Barnstaple.

The Preparations Made
On the previous night tanks were filled,all screws and nuts tested, trembler readjusted, and engine thoroughly cleansed with paraffin, and given two full charges of oil. Thanks to the restricted ideas of makers, before facing such a run one has to hang bags and packages all over one's machine, till it resembles a gipsy caravan. I loaded up as par photograph, a spare battery, two toolbags, and a valise containing two gallons of petrol, a spare lamp and carbide.
Then in the twilight I went for a preliminary canter. A quarter of a mile, when a savage roar from the engine announced the belt had gone. I knew that on the morrow I had to climb three seperate hills a mile long, averaging one in ten, and so I had been over zealous in my tightening. The belt was now too short; jolly, this!  However, the local man produced a new Lycett's belt, with a dozen holes ready bored, and lined with copper. Belt tightening made easy – but it proved the be six inches short. But we hung a two hundredweight anvil on it for a couple of hours, and then it fitted the pulleys nicely.

An Early Start
Next morning broke bright and dusty, and in spite of the depressing effects of a seven o'clock breakfast, my spirits were excellent, as the engine firing briskly took me out of the sleeping town. On the first down grade I let it rip. On a long run I like to do the home stretch ahead of the last train, so my motto is to lay the miles behind me early. Round an easy corner pranced a stray bullock, who promptly challenged me to a tilt, but the pace served me, and I rushed past him.
Thence over the bridge, whence "Tom Tagus" leapt on his strawberry mare, nine miles on and across the muddy Torridge; thus to the switchback of Torrington – one mile down (one in ten and twisty), and one mile up (one in ten and twisty).

A Belt Trouble
Half way up the last hill I am blithly wondering whether I should not prefer the Bat pedals to the Excelsir pedals, when a sharp tang! and a bellow from the infuriated engine. The belt has leapt the pulley, and lies half a furlong down the road behind me. The only defect in Lycett's new belt is that when it chances to come off, the fastener always seems to take delight in hiding itself amongst the roots of the nearest nettlebed. Ten stung fingers are my reward for forgetting that there is a spare in my vest pocket. Then a fresh rush up the hill. Hills are the only places in Devon where it is safe to let a 2 3/4 "rip", and if the rider likes to take them fast so does the MMC engine.

The Cattle Nuisance
Breasting the rise in Oakhampton, I encounter five more bullocks. They are less pugnacious than my earlier friend, but even in flight they are game. They lumber heavily up the long grade;but let me beat them? Not they! One, a bit of a laggard, disappears down a crosss lane. A mile on, I lose another in the same way. and at last at the top, the fifth takes the road down into the town, while I cut over Dartmoor for Tavistock.
Abusing the delay, I pull up the spark lever and begin to "move". The road is wide and deserted, surface splendid, and gradient downhill.Gradually the speed increases, till I am glued to the saddle by the rush of the wind past me, and my cheeeks are forced back against their bones, as if by the hand of some invisible giant. Surely we are touching "50".

I lose my Baggage
Suddenly a tremendous bump over a cobble – a crack! I peer cautiously over my shoulder and see dark specks in the white tape of road which the machine seems to be peeling out behind it. Woe! My carrier and impedimentia lie a mile away on the moor. I switch off, run back with the motor, jump on and rush back. One bar of the caarrier has given way. The two halves of the valise lie on different sides of the road, Pratt's green tin peers tipsily out of the heather, the road has a top dressing of patent lavender carbide – but, wonderful to relate, the spare lamp is not broken. Amateur repairs – I am clumsy with my fingers – and a fresh start.

Through Tavistock
Through Tavistock – where I pass a 2 3/4hp air-cooled "car" going uphill ingloriously at the tail of the carrier's van – and so through an unknown village, where I was hampered by an open-air meeting in the narrow street – the hymn breaking off short, to my regret, and the unnecessarily nervous drummer taking refuge behind a map-post. I was driving very slowly, but a mad elephant could hardly have been received with so much respect.
Climbing up to Plymouth, motors are more in evidence, and I receive many a friendly wave on my lonely trek. In plymouth, as usual, I lose my way, and yelling at a loafer halfway down a steep hill, he points back frantically. I dismount, and, heavens! two policemen approach. But for once they are friendly. They prop me up between them, and run me up hill – two yards – and the engine is off again. In the arms of the law – absit omen!

A Quiet Interval
Thenceforth, I say – without regret – there are no incidents to chronicle, for a time. She – my beloved engine – licks up the dusty, undulating miles as a plane eastss shavings off soft pine. I pass dozens of military cyclists toiling laboriously against the east wind. (Why is the wind at Plymouth always easterly?) At Ivybridge I lunch with two of thwm, who with plans of tea at Torquay, have already "turned it up" as they never did against brother Boer. Then on again, and never even a puncture to delay me. The detour to Torquat, the narrow lanes of Brent are all safely accomplished, though I bestow most of my ignition spares on a tricylist in trouble. Shaldon Bridge is crossed, and I cool the engine for the villainous hill out of Teignmouth. I stands at right angles out of a crrowded street. It is very narrow and bumpy, and towers up for a mile with a nominal gradient of one in ten, but the worst one in ten I know, and the stiffest bit right at the very top. No wonder the Teignmouth motorists like big engines. If any fendweller wants a cheap car or bicycle, let him run over to Teignmouth. There are "baby" cars and 1 1/4 hp bicycles to be had at the price of old iron.

A Devonshire Gem
Halfway up I wave to an acquaintance. I dare not stop and he wonders why this dustry, begoggled scorcher can be. Grumpily the engine puffs over the summit – the pedals swinging idle – and the switchback to Dawlish presents no difficulties. At this town – the gem of all Devonshire – I see friends and enjoy tea, also a bathe, being well ahead of my timetable. I filled the petrol tank first at Ivybridge, and now open it again, as I want to make Ilfracombe without another stop. So far, barring the one stoppage for the belt and the other for the carrier, I dismounted only at my own pleasure, and so it was for many a mile more, until at last impending doom begins to fall. But of the engine and the electrical gear I have no word of blame.

The Usual Dog
I was soaruing gaily up a gentle slope out of a nameeless village, when up came the inevitable dog. He was snuffling along behind the skirts of an old dame in her best alpaca on the right. I was humming along quietly on the left. Right across he ran in a bee line, came under my front wheel, and gave me the choice between the ditch and him! Gentle reader, do you blame me if I chose him? For the ditch was deep and nettlesome. But an evil fate gave me the ditch as well. I soared over the handle-bars and the machine wobbled gaily on, and took the void a dozen yards ahead of me. I crawled out, and rejoiced that I had had time to switch off. I hauled out the motor, which was apparently uninjured. So was I. How about the poor terrier which was squawking dismally in the rear? I went back, and not heeding its mistress's compliants, incautiously picked doggie up. It bit my finger. I dropped it hastily. She picked it up, and kissed it. It bit her. She dropped it. Then she opened fire on me.

A Dear Dog
She would take £10 for that dog. Not from me, I opined firmly. Two ladies said it was her fault and it was a wonder the brute hadn't killed me. Robert arrived, and I politely requested the favour of their address, as my only witnesses. They were so sorry, they were going on a long journey next day. Robert asked for my card. So did doggie's mistress. I distributed cards freely. Robert hinted at furious driving. I pointed triumphantly to a lamp unbroken on the lower fork bracket. Finally, I departed, ruffled and expecting a summons.The terrier, luckily, was only frightened and bruised.
Thenceforward the machine settled down to its work over again, until I met friends, and had a second tea. Another Excelsior rider sped me a mile or so one the way, and then a scorcher friend on a pedal bicycle joined me. Darness came on, a three acetylene lamps for various unintelligible reasons failed us, and a tiny paraffin lamp was requisitioned. This meant cautious driving in the dark. Finally, at eleven pm, an awful scrunch saluted my horrified ears, and, ere I could dismount, it rose to a hideous earpiercing clatter.

I Lose some Spokes
The wretched carrier had fouled the back brake, which had calmly wrenched a score of spokes out of the rear wheel. The two hundred miles run had ended at one hundred and eighty-five. Over what followed, I must be brief, lest my feelings pervade my language. Tucking the saddle under my arm, I wheeled that heavy motor two miles to a village where we woke a farmer. He propped the motor against the sideboard in his parlour, and went with us to wake somebody else. The people of Umberleigh are very longsuffering. We hammered at their doors at midnight, and they talked to us in dulcet accents and gave us food, and finally lent me a very passable push bicycle, on which I rode home.

A Pocket Hercules
The motor cycle has now a new carrier, and its reliability has made many converts. One man only is stubborn. As I was engaged next day, I sent a friend out for the motor. He returned the push bicycle to its owner, and found he had twenty minutes to catch the train. He ran uphill to the farmhouse, and its parlour, he says, told an eloquent tale. Here a dusty legging, and there a dusty legging; here also a black leather jacket, yellow speckled with more dust. Against the sideboard a disabled 1 1/2 cwt of motor. He slipped on the jacket and opened the draincock to let the petrol drip out on the road. Then he supported the back wheel under his arm, and ran the machine to the station in eight minutes. He caught the train, but the authorities kept it waiting eleven minutes while they decided what to charge him.

Eve Visits Olympia
– Appreciates some 1931 Improvements, and Accuses the Opposite Sex of Harbouring Serious Delusions about the Requirements of Women Motor Cyclists.
by 'Diana'. (This women’s eye view of the show dates from 1930; her point that there’s no such thing as the ‘typical’ female rider is still worth repeating.

I have been asked, as a keen woman motor cyclist, to say what I thought of the Olympia  Show, from a woman's point of view. Well, I wonder if my view differs so much from that of the average motor cycling male. After all, in these enlightened days, when we've been impertinent enough to encroach on Adam's preserves, both in work and play, we've come to regard these things more or less as he does. Surely, it would be strange if it were otherwise!
Soon after the War, when both hair and skirts underwent surprising abbreviation, we discovered a new thrill – the motor cycle! Lots of us also found that, not only did bikes provide sport; they came in really useful for all sorts of odd jobs or (for those of us with the wanderlust) as a means of making long tours.
I am writing as though I am a hardened veteran, though actually I was still at school when the War ended. My introduction the motor cycling came came just about the time – threee or four years ago – when manufacturers were discovering that, thanks to the aforesaid short skirts, there was no demand for special 'ladies' models'. I know that, because at the behest of two slightly scandalised parents (who had been worried into letting me have a bike), I endeavoured to buy such a machine, and nearly bought one of the two remaining makes; it was only the timely intervention of an elder brother that assured for me a sporty little two-stroke of normal type.
All this seems to have very little to do with Olympia, but I am simply trying to explain why I did not regard the exhibits from any particularly new or different viewpoint.
Still, I will be feminine enough to admit that I am glad to see that many manufacturers are making various odd things easier to adjust and absolutely reliable (that "see" isn't the strict truth, because I'm no good at spotting the finer points of mechanical improvements; I should have said "heard and read" – from the wise words of salesmen and the expert opinions of The Motor Cycle contributors).
While knowing next to nothing of the mysteries of compression ratios and combustion heads, I have learnt (again thanks to that brother) how to tackle little jobs like chain adjustment. There is an example of the type of improvement that I mean; on my present machine – a 350cc side-valve four-stroke of a well-known make – adjusting the chains is (if you will allow an unladylike expression) the devil's own job. I saw the 1931 edition of the same model at Olympia, and the salesman demonstrated how, thanks to a new pivot mounting or something, you can move the gearbox in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
These new shielded-in engines, too, are an extremely nice idea. Though the avergae girl motor cyclist may not object to looking like a she-tramp on occasions, there are times when she wants to retain some sort of respectable appearance when using the bike – on shopping expeditions, for example; and silk stockings (or even woollen stockings for that matter) definitely do not look attractive when decorated with smudges of oily dirt.
Staring, they tell me, is easier; well, that must be a good thing for lots of girls who are buying bikes. Personally, I've never had any real bother in this respect with any of my mild-mannered mounts, but my brother (sorry, but I can't keep him out of this article) has a big ohv which defies all my attempts to get the starter down to the bottom of its stroke, let alone turn the engine fast enough for anything to start happening!

Sidecars Cut No Ice!
I suppose I am expected to pronouce sentence on the comfort or otherwise of the sidecars I saw, but I'm afraid that I have all the he-man solo rider's entire lack of interest in 'chairs'.
Still, they certainly looked comfortable (I really don't believe you can tell much by just sitting in them at the Show; it's the same when trying riding positions on solos), and the various colour schemes were most artistic – too artistic in one or two cases, I thought.
Mrs Stewart's racing Morgan, I thought adorable; but fancy doing well over a hundred in it! I feel scared stiff at any speed over fifty in or on anything.
One thing I did discover in my round of the Show was that the whole male population of motorcycledom still seems the cherish the almost Victorian idea that women motorcyclists are a race apart, and that they can be catered for as if they all had an identical taste in machines. The manufacturers, as I have remarked, apparently realised a long time ago that there is no great demand for 'ladies' open-framed models', and yet they still hand tenacioussly on to the weirdest ideas.
For example, one every stand (with two exceptions) on which I asked any questions, the salesman at once escorted me over to the  smallest, meekest, wuffliest little two-stroke in the range, and the well-memorised formula about "Now this is a very suitable machine for a lady," etc, etc, tripped off his lips.

Two Contrasting Types.
Well, let me tell you about two old school friends who are both motor cyclists. One is now a probationer nurse at a hospital ten miles away from her home. She gets, on an average, only two periods of freedom a week, and uses her bike each time. She doesn't know the carburettor from the back wheel, and she never exceeds 25mph. The only breakdowns she ever has are through running out off petrol and then she has to wait for someone to come along and tell her what's the matter. Now she does ride a wuffly little two-stroke and it's just the bike for her.
The other friend has no job of work, and uses her bike purely for fun. It's a 680cc twin with a torpedo-shaped sidecar. She's afraid of nothing in the way of speed, and carries out most of her own repairs. She is going to try riding in trials very shortly.
With these two girls as extremes, you can take yours humble, with her side-valve 350cc as the half-way type. There are a dozen types on either side of me.
And yet, Mr Superior Male, you haven't learnt to say anything to us but "Now this is a very suitable, etc, etc"!


Prophetic fantasy
In AD 2056 a trip by motor cycle – even when loaned by courtesy of the science museum – may involve travel permits and perhaps physical violence. This 1956-vintage dystopian prediction was penned by Charles George, who had clearly read 1984.

I came in front of the desk and looked down on the angular lady sitting behind it. "Where from?" she snapped. "London," I said. "Destination?" "Edinburgh." "Vehicle?" "Motor cycle." The spectacles quivered and almost fell off her nose. "Motor cycle!" she exploded. "Those dangerous, inefficient, outmoded vehicles. Don't you know that permits are very rarely granted for theem to proceed on public roads. Why, I've issued only two motor-cycle permits since January 2000 and both of them for less than 50 miles. Motor cycles indeed," she muttered, looking more like a waspish schoolmistress than ever.
"Don't you know that the country is short of money? Roads are needed for goods transport. If you want to go to Edinburgh the coach service leaves London every night. Permit refused."
Now I had been working very hard for the permit and did not intend to be refused without first stating my case. "But, madam," I pleaded, "I am not a pleasure driver but a professor of Transport at London University. I am making the journey for experience, to enable me to view the subject from an unusual angle. Here is a letter from the Dean." Quickly she snatched the letter, read it, and looked up at me with hard, hostile eyes.
"How did you acquire a machine?" she snapped. "You know it is illegal to manufacture them?" "I shall have one on loan from the Science Museum," I replied. "Here are the papers; it's a 1954 FBA twin." The dragon sat, and looked, and thought, then grudgingly admitted that everything seemed  to be in order. "Permit granted," she said, handing me the precious slip of paper. "Personal Journey Tax will be £5. Pay and get your receipt at the cash counter.
Next morning, dressed as I thought a motor cyclist should be dressed, I left home and joined the traffic stream leading to the marshalling yards at Hatfield. Soon my convoy started off (with me at the very back) at the scheduled speed of 50mph. As all intersections and bridges were clear, the pace hardly faltered. The wisdom of bringing railway methods to the roads to overccome the chaotic muddle of 50 years ago was amply shown. Tested and improved by half a century of experimenting and general use, control was so efficient that our speed was checked only by curves and gradients. We travelled in a compact, disciplined body at a very nearly constant speed.
The FBA was running well. Built as it was in the bad old days of unrestricted speeds, 50mph was much below its cruising speed. I allowed myself drop behind a little for I was still inexperienced in the control of the machine and was not confident of avoiding the car ahead should it stop suddenly. But I had not thought of the all-seeeing eye of the Commodore in the leading vehicle. His crisp voice barked over the loud hailer. Close up there in the rear, motor cyclist. Seeing that we have got to have you, you might as well obey the rules."
All was peace for five miles, then, suddenly, the FBA began to splutter. Fuel was running out. I turned on the reserve supply just as the convoy began to slow down. The Commodore's voice rang out again. "Single-line traffic for the next two miles. The road is under repair. The convoy will slow down to 30mph in three minutes' time." "Not me," I muttered, "I shall be walking at three mph very shortly."
At that moment I noticed a refuelling station by the head of the convoy. Cautiously I began to nose my way up the left-hand side. Three minutes would give me just enough time to refuel and take up station again. The Commodore's angry tones came through the loud hailer: "What the blazes do you think you are doing, motor cyclist? Get back to your station. This is not a time machine you are riding and this is 2020, not 1950."
It was impossible for me to explain my trouble to the man, so I carrried on. I could let him know when I reached his vehicle. He shouted again and I moved my hand to indicate that I had heard and understood. A few moments later I was beside him and ready to explain, when the irate fool opened the door of his cabin with such fury that it struck me on the side of the head, laying me senseless.
I came to in my own armchair in front of the fire. The radio was on. A politician's apologist was still burbling away as he had been when I dozed off. "And so,” he was saying, "that is why we shall not be able to afford to do more than improve a few black spots on our trunk roads during 1956. We must cut our garments to suit our cloth."
He said no more to me... I switched him off."


Winged Chariot
An irresistable urge to go riding in a motorcycle comes to many youngsters. How it can return with equal compulsion in later life is told in this moving tale which dates from 1954, in the scary depths of the cold war when the writer clearly didn’t see much of a future.
 
So long ago you were a kid; and one afternoon you heard an odd sort of chuffing noise by the gate, and you ran out, queerly excited and sort of longing for something you couldn't quite define. And there was your brother, years older than you, with the first motorcycle you ever saw close to.
A Minerva, even then eight or nine years old, with a little engine clipped to the front down tube, a tank about two inches wide by eighteen deep, with levers and knobs and cupboards and the extraordinary swan-neck saddle pillar; belt drive, of course, and pedals.
You walked round and round it, in kind of a daze, and you smelled the rang of the Huile de Kipper; and your brother put it on its stand, and pedalled, and the chuffing began all over again. And you knew, then, that one day you must – simply must – have a machine of your own, and that nothing else mattered except that, nor ever would again.
You spent your weekly penny on your very own copy of 'the Green 'Un' – you simply couldn't wait for your brother to finish with his – and there were the marvellous drawings by Shuffrey and Thomas, and the Show and TT numbers were about three inches thick – still a penny – and full of advertisements of oddities like steel-studded tyres and exhaust whistles; and you pushbiked to every Gipsy Club meeting in pushbikeable distance.
Then the Minerva was succeeded by a really lovely Triumph, only about two years old, still with pedalling gear and a belt, but with decent ignition, and a spring fork of sorts. Sometimes your brother took you on the carrier, and you were right out of this world while thee ride lasted; and the house seemed always full of people in odd-looking caps and riding breeches, or in ordinary caps turned the wrong way round, who arrived on Bats, Bradburys and Zeniths and NUTs – all long-forgotten now – some with cold but marvellously comfortaable wicker sidecars. And you practically breathed Huilde de Kipper, and had the time off your life listening to the talk, and polishing the machines, if you were allowed, because you loved them so.
 But one day, the papers came out in big black headlines; and the people in the queer hats began to get fewer and fewer, and then they had all gone, your brother included; and the Triumph stood, sheet-covered and silent in a garage no longer noisy with talk and exhausts, but desolate and quiet, quite dead.
Then you were packed off to a boarding school, which wasn't too bad; until one day, they told you, gently, that your brother had died in the thunder and flame of an exploding battle-cruiser at a place called Jutland (or Skaggerak, according to which side you were on); and when you had got around to realising that you wouldn't see him any more, ever, you wondered about the Triumph, and whether it might come your way. But your mother sold it, because to see it standing in its corner was more thaan she could bear; but she promised you one of your own when you left school.
So the silly, useless slaughter went on for another couple of years, until ot seemed that every other woman you saw was in black; and you got your own call-up papers (for they took them at sixteen and a half in that war). But a week later, it was all over, stopped like a run-down clock. And school was over, too, for good, and you were shot out into a world which didn't seem particularly interested, or have much for you to do.
Motor Cycling, which for two years had appeared on a queer pinkish paper, full of bits of straw – there was nothing else to be had – illustrated with pictures of sidecar outfits with gas bags, and hints on how to make ordinaary carburettors work on paraffin, began to desscribe new machines, and new makes; dozens of new makes, until it seemed that almost everyone who could lay his hands on a JAP or Villiers engine and some bits of tubing had aa maake of his own; even a film distributing company marketed one. Deliveries were months ahead, and prices went up and up. Every week you would see the ominouis small-type "Plus 10%" or "Plus 20%" added to last week's price, and your heart sank lower and lower, because you were realising that you could never, never aford a new one.
You kept hopefully ordering anything which looked decent – there was aa Metro-Tyler, with disc wheels aand crimson enamel very alluring to a novice, and a baby Levis, and a Radco – and then canceelling the ordders as the horrible little percentages hoisted them quite out of your reach.

The great day
By now you had a horrible job in the City, which you hated like hell because you had lived in the country all your life; and one baking August day, you were plodding down the stinking oven called Holborn, and you looked, as usual, un the dealer's window, and you saw IT...
People nowadays don't seeem to get actually sick with excitement when they buy their first motorcycle, but you were; almost, anyway. It was only a little two-stroke Sun, made about 1915, with footboards and the sort of bars colloquially known as ear-scratchers; but it was in beautiful condition, and its price – forty pounds – was all you had in the world, even with what your mother had given you. Almost fearfully, you asked if it was sold; and it wasn't; and then it was, and you were pushing it, with a sort of incredulous wonder, as though it might dissolve in your very grasp, out of the shop.
In spite of all your reading and watching, you were very green. Not green enough to try and ride through London traffic to Waterloo, because you had ridden a machine only once, for about a quarter of a mile (and even then you were so deliriously happy that you had driven the thing on full throttle and no air because you got the levers mixed) but green enough to find that shoving the Sun, on a boiling August afternoon, the hardest work you had ever attempted. Until a kindly character, obviously torn between sympathy for your manifest exhaustion and suspicious that you were insane, suggested that you might find things easier if you took the belt off. He was right, too.
So you bribed a guard to let you sit with the machine in a van smelling terribly of fish (because you were convinced that if you left your treasure unattended it would fall over and be quite, quite ruined); and so you got it home.
After a time you prospered a bit, as people did in the middle 'twenties. The little Sun gave way, first to a disastrous Singer, and then to a BRS Norton.
Looking back down the years, you see your life as sort of milestoned by the motorcycles you had, much as Henry VIII must have measured his by wives. Only, unlike poor Henry, who never seemed to find that the contents of the package equalled the picture on the box, you remember your milestones with lasting affection because, except for the Singer, they were so good, and gave you so much happiness. People said you had aa one-track mind; and perhaps you had . But it was a wonderful track, and it led you to golden afteernoons, in the autumn, in Cowdray Park, with everything a riot of orange and gold and russett; to Sussex lanes, sweet scented and soft in the summer dusk; to the great Dorset hill of Bulbarrow, where the West Country unrolls like a coloured picture map beneath your feet; to Portland, with the sun sinking into a sea of lambent gold...
Far and wide the five-hundreds took you, accompanied now; because, as the years went by, your mother died andd you married; sometimes with sidecars (though not much, because you hated the things) but mostly pillion. And then you got your fifteenth machine, another Norton (all your new mounts had been Nortons or Ariels); and, although you didn't know it, it was to be your last for a long, long time...
Because you fell ill. And when it was over it left you almost stone-deaf, so that you couldn't do the only job you knew. Your small wife struggled to keep things going, and you did what you could (including messing about with an old typewriter) but there wasn't much margin. The Norton went, and a good many other things too. But there was still Motor Cycling; and your memories... 

Life begins again
And then, oddly enough, the typewriter-messing began to pay off a little. Only the smell of an oily rag, true; but enough to let your thoughts play with possibilities. Such as, for instance, the fact that you weren't getting any younger, and might not have many more years left to ride a motorcycle; and whether you had forgotten how to overhaul one; and whether you could possibly afford that little ten-year-old (this was in 1949) two-fifty two stroke going for thirty-five quid; and what you could make of it.
And suddenly, it bacame as big and compulsive an urge as it had been on the August afternoon thirty years before. You rushed in and bought the two-stroke, as idiotically excited as the seventeen-year old of that far-off day. You got it home and you overhauled it from end to end, farming out the bits you couldn't manage; and when you had it finished, for less than sixty pounds you had a machine with a performance better than a new one of twice its cost. And if new five-hundreds at two hundred pounds apiece would never be for you again, you had something on which you could still do threee hundred miles a day, cruise at forty-five, and flash-read sixty if you wanted to. And life began all over again...
And because you know that there is nothing else beettter than motorcycling in the whole world, nor even half as good, and because you knew, too, that hundreds who would love a machine can't find the pounds – so many pounds now – for a new model; and because, somewhere, there are motorcycles which will suit, or can quite simply be made to suit, all those hundreds; and because the world today is balanced on a razor-edge of annihilation and there quite easily might not be much more time, you have set down your story, in the hope that the Editor might find room for it, and that it will help persuade some, at least, of those hundreds to get something, to make it as good as they can, and ride it out into the golden morning, into the lovely English countryside.
While they may... 



From Scotland to Scandinavia
At the dawn of the 20th century it took a brave rider to tackle a run from Essex to Scotland. But for the writer of the following yarn that was only the beginning.

Is touring dead? I am not going to discuss that. The big gooseberry season is over. I am only going to assert that, after many years of cycle touring and of work in the interests of tourists, my annual mileage is as large as ever, and my love of the open road is as keen as every. The fact is that the true lover of Nature has an appetite that grows by what it feeds upon, and an eye that finds fresh delights whenever a familiar spot is revisited.
Byron, looking back at Harrow school and village, could never have written in his boyhood of the joys of the past: "Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast; your pleasures may still be in fancy possessed." The flats of Essex or the snows of the Alps, how happy I could be with either, when "memory, fond memory," adds a glow to the sunset! The man who has travelled has a perspective denied to youth. And the man who is married has enjoyment unknown to the bachelor. When he takes his wife to see the pretty spots he knows so well, he has his reward when she says, "My dear it is all beautiful."

Preliminary preparations
It was settled that a trailer should be attached to my motor bicycle on my tour. My wife and I together weigh twenty-seven stone. The first step was to put motor cycle spokes in the trailer wheels. The machine was a Regina, strongly built, and almost free from vibration, with a 2¾hp genuine De Dion motor. I had it converted to wipe contact and trembler coil, Bowden thumb-lift for exhaust valve, twisting handle for a switch, and two rim brakes. I always carry my luggage in a large circular bag, secured to the handle-bar by swivel straps. The lamp-bracket is put low down on the side pillar of the triple head. I had a leather bag made to fit the space between the saddle tube and the back forks, and a spare petrol tank fitted into the bag, this being removable.

On our way Northwards
We started shortly after 6am from our Essex suburb, and made a detour to avoid paving and tram lines. We got onto the North Road at Potter's Bar. Stag Hill was very loose and flinty. Half-way up a dismount was necessary, but the motor took me to the top without passenger. Here I noticed that a trailer tyre was cut and deflated. A water test and the repair took quite half an hour; then the running on the main road was delightful. We breakfasted at the Salisbury Arms at Hatfield. We resolved to go easily, with the spark fully retarded. Cyclists at Hitchin, however, wanted to accompany us, and we paced them for ten miles. Biggleswade and Buckden were passed, recalling memories of time trials and of the medal dangling from my watch-chain. Alconbury Hill had now no terrors of competitors passing, no perspiring, no pedalling.
We lunched at Norman Cross – another old haunt. Stamford we were glad to get through, as it was market day. Beyond it, we were stopped by the police when rounding a bend with the exhaust lifted. The inspector was courteous, and has not troubled us since. Grantham we remember as the place where we bought petrol. Gonerby Hill led us up, and so did Tuxford Hill. Starting again here on the up-grade I broke the chain while pedalling, but an auxiliary link sufficed for a repair.

The end of the first day
We had tea at that splendid house, the Ossington Tavern, at Newark. Then on we went to Doncaster, turning in at the Angel before lighting-up time. The cyclometer registered 169 miles for the day. We had agreed to tell nobody on the journey about our mileage. Trailers, you know, may only travel six miles an hour.
Rain fell all night. A mile from the start next morning a trailer tyre punctured. The roads now were vile, slimy, and hilly, requiring great care. We halted at Ferrybridge for breakfast. The switch-back roads were too much for the brittle chain, but I got a bit of spare chain from a repairer and put in a link, after much filing of rivets, whenever the chain broke. Food and fuel at Wetherby set us going again, and we made fast time along the Leeming Lane, which goes straight as an arrow for miles. Approaching Scotch Corner, the trailer tyre burst, and roadside repairs failed. Rain was falling, and we turned off the road and went to Richmond to spend the night and to get a new cover.
How we should have liked to ramble amid the beauties of this neighbourhood! But rain prevented, and besides we had wired to friends in the North to expect us. The weather improved, and the roads were dry when we reached Greta Bridge. Is there any grander sight in England than that from these fells in the sunshine after a storm? If so, I should like to see it, and I have been in every county.
Climbing the steep hills, the chain broke once again. That repair was done very leisurely. The prism binocular was taken out of the trailer basket, and the natives enjoyed a look through the glasses with childish glee. I include myself among the natives. The work over, Stainmore Forest from Bowes was tough. We were glad to see the spiral descent to Brough, and to have tea there.

More chain and tyre troubles
At Appleby we got an inner tube with some difficulty, but found the other trailer tyre burst. We decided to get to Carlisle whatever the hour, and rode on the rim for about thirty-five miles. We were glad to have the company of cyclists to pilot us for a while in the dark. Penrith almost tempted us to stay, but on we went, feeling the drag on the hills. Scenes of childhood reminded me where to find the village pump at High Hesket, even in the dark, and wine never tasted nicer than that water. Dawn appeared, and very weird was the scene. Lightning often flashed, and lifted the veil of the dim distance. Soon our lamp could be turned out, and in the early morning we bumped over the sets into "ye merrie citie" of Carlisle.
Carlisle is a spokey place; roads radiate from it like a wheel. One day we sprinted to the seaside at twenty miles an hour, and, avoiding a fowl, swerved over a kerb, cracking the trailer connecting tube. The fault was only revealed next day when returning from the Scotch border country. The tube snapped, and tilted up an old gentleman passenger. The trailer was done with, and the return journey to London was made by rail. My wife remained at the seaside, while I went for a sea trip.
Mine was the first motor bicycle seen on the steamer which took me from Harwich to Esbjerg. The oil tank holds a supply for 500 miles. Petrol must not be taken on board, but I arranged before-hand for some motor benzine to be ready for me at Hansen's shop in Esbjerg. My route crossed Jutland for sixty miles. Scarcely a mile was level, but there were no hills except in and out of the first town – Kolding – forty-five miles distant. The wind swept with great force across unfenced roads. Moorland and pasture, windmills and dairies, they were like recurring decimals. And the dogs – the curs – were too recurring. Ten followed me through one village, barking and running across the track of the front wheel. I laughed when one dropped back sneezing, after a sniff at the exhaust gas, and another ran yelping because the wheel had trod on its toe.

A little knowledge
The use of signs and a little knowledge of Norwegian enabled me to get my wants supplied in the towns. Frederica brought me to the coast, where a steam ferry takes one in twenty minutes to the island of Fyen. Thirty miles more, over a wide bumpy road, and the capital of the island – Odense – is reached. The prosperous appearance of this town, its large shops and comfortable villas, was a surprise to me. Next morning (Sunday) I soon rolled off the nineteen miles to the ferry at Nyborg, and caught the first steamer across the Great Belt (1¼ hours) to the island of Sjelland. I had lunch of "English Beef" on board. Often afterwards I gave the same order, and it was always steak and onions. The ferry has a double line of rails and takes a whole train on board, thus saving handling the goods.

Only benzine to be had
At Korsör I was able to get fuel for the motor at 2s 9d per gallon. It was sold by the "pund", and nine punds go to our gallon. The stuff is called benzine, and it is used for cleaning clothes. Apothecaries sell it everywhere. I found that it overheated the engine and got used up about thirty per cent more quickly than good petrol. Often I stopped to examine the machine, wasting hours in that way, and nothing was defective but the spirit. The effect was to slow the machine every few minutes and to weaken it on hills, but I always got through. There was nothing to detain me for forty-eight miles. Then Roskilde deserved several hours' stop for lunch and lounge. The cathedral is very prettily situated, and nobody should miss a walk through the tombs of the kings. Twenty-one miles run on a highway crowded with cyclists took me into Copenhagen. The Hotel Germania, by the quay-side, seemed a long way off, especially as a dismount is compulsory in certain asphalted streets; but the quiet, comfortable hotel was worth seeking out.

The lions of Copenhagen
I had been to Copenhagen before, and knew that its lions were the two T’s – Tivoli and Thorwaldsen. I spent the Sunday evening at the Tivoli Gardens. Forty thousand people were there, and the choice of entertainment seemed endless. The Danes are said to spend more money on pleasure, in proportion to their incomes, than any other country. I do not advise young men to go there; the fair-haired, strong-limbed, rosy-cheeked, merry-eyed Danish lasses will steal their hearts. English ladies may go with impunity. The Danes were so happy, courteous, handsome, prosperous and so friendly with English people that they are bound to have a jolly time of harmless enjoyment. Every educated Dane speaks English.

I cross to Sweden
Next day I revisited the Thorwaldsen Museum – a marvellous collection of original or replicas comprising practically the whole work of the great sculptor. Then I had to become acquainted with the unique life of Copenhageners at their pretty summer seaside villas, which extend for many miles along the Oresund, to visit the royal deer forests and places, to spend a morning at the Danish Humber works, to get the valves ground in and other slight adjustments made.
Here is the programme of a day's journey: I left Copenhagen at 7am for Sweden, reaching Malmo by steamer at 8.30. Then I had sixty-five miles to ride over wretched roads, slippery and stony by turn. My principal objective was the cathedral of Lund, the largest in Sweden. Here in a sarcophagus in the crypt I saw a curious effigy – the builder of the place turned to stone, with the beard still on his face, his punishment for trying to pull the church down again. Helsingborg had an industrial exhibition on. At four o'clock I was steaming across to Denmark again (20 minutes), and then spent an hour visiting the castle of Elsinore, the home of Halmet, Prince of Denmark. After tea I rode the thirty miles very fast along the hilly, splendid King's Road to Copenhagen.
The return journey was the same as the outward one as far as Roskilde; then I turned off to Holback. I had started late in the afternoon, and could only manage forty-one miles before sunset owing to the mysterious behaviour of the machine, since traced to the spirit. Two hours' overhauling next morning left me too little time to catch my steamer, but I boarded the boat train and got the boat at Kallundborg at 11.35am. This route enabled me to omit the recrossing of the island of Fyen, and 4¾ hours' sail brought me to Aarhus. One of the pleasantest evening that I have ever spent was occupied in visiting the cathedral, strolling through the beautiful Marselisborg woods, and chatting with residents. The next day was to Veile and its pretty fjord.

I reach Kolding
I reached Kolding that evening, and the journey next day took me back to Esbjerg over the route already described. I had ridden 900 miles in a little over a fortnight, taken many dozens of photo-graphs, spent several days on steamers, and visiting sights; never stinted myself, travelled first-class, and spent less than half the cost of a previous Scandinavian holiday of the same duration taken without a bicycle. Then think of the freedom, going where I pleased, and changing my plans because I was not hampered by tickets. Except for a broken chain and the mystery of the spirit, I need not have done anything to the machine. Many a motor would not have run at all on such fuel. I carried two batteries, and had both recharged at Carlisle. Only dry batteries are used in Denmark. Motoring is only beginning there, but the Danes are not the people to miss any good thing that is going, and it is safe to prophesy the same rapid progress of motor cycling in Denmark as has taken place in the adoption of pedal cycling.



Motorcycling sharpens the mind
Motorcycling wasn't always seen as a dangerous pursuit – this piece, dating from 1930, reminds us that a stupid motorcyclist is likely to become a late motorcyclist.

Have you ever noticed what a quick-witted crowd motorcyclists are, especially those who ride in trials or other sporting events? Dullards and sluggards are never to be found among our ranks.
Motorcycling is a wonderful training for the perception and senses. Practice in quick thinking on the road comes out in everyday life in a quick appreciation of a joke or an argument.
With experience in riding comes a perfect co-ordination of eyes, brains and muscles. If you could watch a motorcyclist's face as he rides along you would see that, as the railway passenger's eyes range quickly from side to side, so do the rider's eyes move up and down. He scans the road from far ahead to see if it is clear, down to just in front of his wheel to see what the surface is like. This process is continuous; from the general to the particular; having seen that he has 50 yards clear, he can examine the road to see what kind of going is immediately before him.
When it is considered that this is carried out at comparatively high speed and that the results of the survey have to be communicated to the brain and the appropriate action taken, it will be seen what a degree of concentration is necessary. Other vehicles have to be noted; the contour of the road, the gradient, the distance from a corner, the running of the engine, when to change gear – all have to be borne in mind; and potholes, tramlines, dogs, children, wandering pedestrians, all have to be looked for. Yet so natural do all these tasks and the necessary precautions become that the rider has ample time to notice scenery and most objects on or around the road and to give signals and due concentration for other road users.
The trials rider, in particular, is acccustomed to making quick decisions as to how to handle the various types of surface he encounters. Practically every hill requires a different mode of attack, which may vary again according to the weather. A rider is confronted with a strange hill for the first time. He is in the non-stop section, and, quick as thought can act, he must decide what to do, and do it! It is almost incredible how many details of a test hill can be absorbed when climbing quite fast. To the onlooker it may appear a wild dash, but the rider has probably chosen a particular path and is endeavouring to stick to it, at the same time steering to avoid the larger rocks. A striking demonstration of this point is afforded by climbing a stony hill close behind another man. It is extremely difficult to make a feet-up climb because the stones come into sight too late to avoid them.
The racing man, of course, has the quickest wit of all, for it is a matter of necessity with him. In fact, it may be said that the capacity for quick thought is half the battle in successful speed work.