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The fourth issue of the Northwood Wheelers news sheet (June 1952) is introduced by Bob Harvey, the Press Secretary, in a manner familiar to newsletter and website administrators in club cycling the world over - another plea for material. This was a problem for both clubs I’ve been in, and I suspect is quite widespread! Clearly Bob’s having a bit of trouble filling the pages, this issue is down to one and a half pages, and these aren’t foolscap pages. In fact, as I look ahead at the pile of newsletters waiting to be scanned, they do seem to be rather more extensive in the years ahead, so something must change…

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Another perennial topic is one of safe riding. In this news sheet, Bob reports on an incident where an unidentified club member rode into the back of a stationary car while taking part in an event - the police had requested some message on cycling safety be distributed to the members. Exhortations to avoid ‘heads-down’ racing are still common-place on event startsheets today, so I guess at least a proportion of cyclists are inveterate risk-takers!

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Bob reports that four members spent Whitsun weekend with the Comet 66 helping at events including the University ‘100’. It is said that the ‘beloved Racing Scretary’ took part. There’s a cryptic comment that ‘the less said the better’. It’s unclear whether this refers to the marshalling or the racing!

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Another call for things to be auctioned!

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On the time trial front, Tom Simpson reports on a few events. Alan Stratman set a new club record of 4:44:50 for 100 miles, and continued to hold off Brian Major. The week before, Alan nearly took the club’s ’50’ record. Derek Speakman seems to mix in the Stratman-Major battle occasionally. Roger Bingham makes an appearance in the newsletter, having taken the club ’10’ record.

Tom moves on to return to the warning about heads down riding seen on page 1.

Open Events: It seems that club events had been so frequent that club riders haven’t competed in many open events since the previous newsletter. Colin Turner reports that he has entry forms for four upcoming events:

London Clarion Longmarkers ’25’ 6/7/52, on the F4a

Basingstoke CC ’25’ 13/7/52, on the H15

Norlond Combine ’12’ 20/7/52, on a course described as the F8 etc. 

High Wycombe 2nd Class 100, which is described rather cryptically, and I can’t immediately interpret what the numbers (which are presumably 25, 50 and 100 mile times) refer to.