Page 14 - PBCMarch2017

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Pickwick Bicycle Club Magazine Volume 14 No.1 March 2017

The Story of The Amateur Bicycle Club Part 2

We continue the story of the ABC by author Nick Clayton about an historic bicycle Club that appears to
have been formed prior to the existence of our own Pickwick Bicycle Club.

The Machines They Rode

There were many references to the machines being ridden in the early days, when Custance and King
began as boneshaker riders, and Custance kept his 40” rubber tyred Parfrey unOl 1876 when he changed
to a 54” Keen Eclipse. Tudor- Frere rode a 38” Beck boneshaker with fat rubber tyres unOl 1876. A club run
in 1872 saw 5 x Becks, 3 x Keen Bros, and 1 x Ariel. The Beck Bros ceased producOon someOme in 1875.
John Keen became the chosen bicycle provider, iniOally at Surbiton Hill, and in Clapham by 1875; although
it’s reported that his machines were ‘as unreliable as most, and the repair service disOnctly leisurely’.
November 1878 there was an occurrence where “At Streatham Hill the wire thread of the front tyre
parted and poked its nose through its rubber sheath…transfixing the fleshy part of its owner’s right thigh.”
The Ordinary gave way to the Safety, and in May 1885 Mr May is noted on his new Kangaroo, and Mr
Innes is sOll riding one in 1888. Herbert Canning (Captain from 1890- 96) had a stable of machines
including a geared Facile, a brand new Whippet, and a Humber pneumaOc. Apart from supplying
machines Keen was also as we saw, the main character in the Challenge Medal debacle, and many of his
le@ers – said to be in a ‘neat, literate and respeciul style’ are pasted into the minute books.

The Amateur Question & The Hampton Court Meets

The amateur quesOon was high on the agenda in the early days of the sport and the ABC had a special
interest. In 1875 they resolved that the ‘Club promote the organisaOon of an AssociaOon to recognise a
certain class of clubs’. In fact as this developed, the ABC moved further away from associaOng with
anyone. The Dark Blue Bicycle Club Hon Sec. proposed that ‘the two clubs should act together to
represent the conservaOve element of bicycling. And since you (Custance) & Frere are Oxford men, I
would be glad to propose you as honorary members’. By 1878 however, the ABC commi@ee were
unanimous in staOng that the consOtuOon of a Bicycle Union was neither desirable nor needed.
Similar animosity showed over the annual Hampton Court monster meets, and in 1874 along with several
other clubs - 38 machines in all – as the others formed a procession, the ABC elected to look on.

Custance sourly noted this in the minutes as “The meet was a@ended by twelve clubs of which only four
could honestly be denominated as being composed exclusively of Gentleman Amateurs; many of the
remaining members being far below par and of no great improvement on the noisy radicals mechanics
and other republican rascals who put their noses where least wanted”.