Accidents in London and core training on the track
Cycling 18 March, 1927
That’s not a women’s edition of the magazine from a century ago, instead it’s an advert on the front cover. While that would never happen now, leading with an advert seemed common practice in the roaring Twenties.
The magazine always opened with the Our Point of View page – essentially a comments page. The opening point of view this week could almost be picked up and put on the news pages now – albeit with a slightly more modern turn of phrase – as it tackles the issue of road accidents. “It is appalling to read that over 1,000 people were killed and over 47,000 injured last year in the streets of London alone.” This is an eye-watering statistic, especially considering the speeds of vehicles back then.
The writer’s focus was on the way this situation should be tackled. A conference was to be held at which hundreds of delegates representing municipal bodies were expected to attend. “This is a matter for a few experts, facing the facts squarely, unhampered by political or financial consideration.” The writer correctly identifies that “the proper way to attack the problem is to deal with the class who are causing the accidents, namely the mechanically propelled vehicles, and particularly the heavy class.”
On the World of Wheels pages there’s a variety of small stories, from the winding up of the Lothians CC (remaining members joined the Edinburgh Amateur CC) to the question of whether or not one-and-three-quarter-year-old Master Naisbitt of the South Shields CC is the youngest clubman in the country.
The pages also included two images of track riders training in America. One looks staged, with a rider lying in the snow at the bottom of the track having ‘crashed’, the other from Newark, New Jersey, has two riders riding (anticlockwise) throwing a medicine ball between them. The caption says that’s “how the pro’s train”.