Mr.Brown, You are blocking my mail so you give me no alternative than to post this on the list which I did not want to do but how else can I reply to your assumptions. Dear Mr. Brown, I was saddened to hear from you that Mr. Hilary Stone had relinquished his VCC Committee post. They the club will sorely miss him. He is probably irreplaceable. It was no mean achievement of his part to take a rag-bag four page magazines, poorly produced on a duplicator and single handedly makes it into the wonderful publication it is today. This magazine is greatly enjoyed by all cyclists worldwide. In doing this sterling work he also greatly raised the profile of veteran cycling collecting. I truly hope he will be remembered for this excellent work. Having said this man has faults, he is not always historically correct or accurate on the subjects he writes about. This is why I was asking on list for some explanations on two points: Evans frame numbers and the highly misleading reference to F.W.Evans and touring bicycles. You might deem this snobby and elitist but he was never a club cyclist in my eyes so his out pourings to me lack a certain kudos and need to be questioned on accuracy. What is particularly irritating to numerous club cyclists is the way that he comes across as the only worth while authority on Cycling. He has made numerous inaccurate statements in print which he does get occasionally challenged on. If you put yourself up as self appointed expert and authority you are going to take flack when you invariably get it hopelessly wrong. Another matter which really annoys British cyclists of a certain age is the name of the VCC. In the United Kingdom it has been an unwritten law or matter of principal hat you do not use the initials of another cycling club or organization. The VCC was originally named the SVCC by its founding fathers. The Southern Veteran Cycling Club. The word Southern has nothing to do with regions or elitism. We Southerners are better than you Northerners, no the word Southern was put there to stop it being confused with the VCC the Vegetarian Cycling Club. This is cycling club etiquette, many members who were cyclists fought tooth and nail to keep the word Southern in the name. Many resigned over the name change or quite simply did not renew their membership. I think I am correct in saying that Mr.Stone will be forever linked and associated with those scoundrels who stole a famous clubs initials. They to a man were clearly not cyclists and ignorant of British cycling clubs traditions and unwritten rules. Now to your totally unfounded and hurtful accusation I am assuming you are giving the knife a twist in your comments. This is not true and very hurtful and judgmental on your part. There was definitely no unpleasantness intentioned and to infer that this was cleverly insinuated is clearly not correct. Your illustrious President Mr. Bush and our glove puppet of a Prime Minister Tony Blair assumed that there were weapons of mass destruction held in Iraq which has now been disproved as an incorrect assumption. If I was truly clever and devious I would have posted this directly to the list. Please do not look for malice a motive or evil in everything. The person in question should be praised for his achievements and thanked for his many correct and interesting contributions but when he states something which is clearly wrong or inaccurate, surely we should be able to query or criticize him in free debate Which side of the seat lug is the frame number on an Evans the list or me still hasnt had an answer. Finally I dont expect you to publish this on the list as I think it is a case of my bat my ball my game on your list. Now thats me making an assumption. Yours truly Frank.
Frank Cohen Hoxton UK.
Frank Cohen Hoxton UK