V-CC New England Section

About the V-CC

Photo By Scott Ebersole

The Veteran-Cycle Club is an international organization dedicated to research in cycling history, restoration, and riding old bicycles from all eras. The V-CC publishes two journals, News & Views and The Boneshaker, which cover all aspects of bicycle history and veteran cycling. It promotes national and local cycling events; maintains a library of cycling books, journals, and trade literature; publishes and distributes pamphlets and books; and has a roster of marque enthusiasts who collect documents on cycle brands and help members to identify and date their machines.

V-CC local sections ensure the continuing use and appreciation of older types of bicycles, and carry on the traditional, sociable club run as the center of cycling life. The New England Section is the only local section of the V-CC outside the British Isles. It organizes a regular schedule of club runs on all kinds of old bicycles, in all seasons, on city streets, country roads, and woodland tracks of eastern Massachusetts, with occasional forays farther afield. Our run schedule is published in the bimonthly club magazine, News & Views.

If you like to ride old bikes, look at your surroundings instead of a bike computer, and eat real food on a ride, you might enjoy riding with the V-CC New England Section. Membership information is here. If you would like to try an outing with us, send an e-mail to this blog; we'd enjoy having you along for the ride.

Ray's Roundel, May 10, 2008

Next event: Liz Coffey's film night, May 24

Reading Pilgrim propaganda in Watertown

Look closely

c1973 Holdsworth Super Mistral

1967 Hetchins Vade Mecum

Reading Viking propaganda in Weston

Scenic Waltham

Photos by Chris Barbour

The V-CC on a Bummel, April 27, 2008

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a bummel as "a leisurely stroll or journey." Ours wandered from densely settled urban neighborhoods through suburban landscapes, sprawling cemeteries with rolling hills and Neo-Gothic chapels, a park built around a mountain of trash, to a stunning expanse of woods, marsh, and dirt tracks at the edge of Boston.

The third helmet in the stack has just fallen.

Photos by Chris Barbour

Tour of the Donkeys, April 12, 2008

Donkeys, a few sheep, a lot of horses, and many beautiful old farmhouses and barns...

Photos by Chris Barbour

Road Salt Ride, March 15, 2008

Winter in southern New England is not what it once was. The prospect of scheduling a club run in concurrence with snow is dodgy at best. Indeed on the morning of the ride the sound of rain falling in the alley accompanied my breakfast. When it came time to pack the saddlebag before heading out the door, I noticed that the sound had stopped. I raised the blind and saw that the rain had turned to snow. "Perfect!"

Mudguards clogged with pine needles and snow bring proceedings to a quick halt. Bob hoists the Flying Scot.

We like our old bikes splattered with mud. It's cycling, not taxidermy.

Photos by Chris Barbour

Charles River Time Trial, February 3, 2008

The New England Section's speed judging event covers two laps of 8.6 miles each around the Charles River Basin, from the Weld Boathouse at Harvard to the Museum of Science, past Beacon Hill, the Back Bay, and Allston, finally crossing the Larz Anderson Bridge back to the starting point. The rider with the smallest difference between laps is winner. Pedestrians, dogs, joggers, rollerbladers, baby carriages, and other cyclists provide sporting interest.

Bob Williamson on his aerodynamically enhanced pre-War Elgin.

By tradition the contestants buy the timekeeper lunch at John Harvard's Brewhouse after the race. This year they forgot :-(

Who thought it would be a good idea to ride over seventeen miles on a Raleigh RSW 16? No one more fully embraces the spirit of the Charles River Time Trial.

Ray Coffey with his Schwinn New World, freshly revived at Workshop Day, and eventual winner Chuck Hughes on his Elgin with a two-speed Eadie hub.

Dawn Labenski is off.

Dan MacMartin rode a 1930s Raleigh. Elton Pope-Lance steadies the ship.

Photos by Elton Pope-Lance

Workshop Day, January 19, 2008

Our fourth Workshop Day was devoted to putting a 1940s fillet-brazed Schwinn New World back on the road.

Photos by Chris Barbour

Connecticut Expedition, November 10, 2007

A beautiful fall day of riding in the towns of Stonington and Mystic.

Photos by Chris Barbour

Summer Rides 2007

Photos by Elton Pope-Lance, Dawn Labenski, Ray Coffey, and Chris Barbour

Circumnavigation of Manhattan

April 28, 2007

Photos by Elton Pope-Lance

The Wayfarer Ride

photos by Scott Ebersole

March 31, 2007

Inspired by Wayfarer's famous ride over the Nant Rhyd Wilym in the Berwyn Mountains of Wales on the penultimate day of March, 1919, the New England Section rode over October Mountain in the Berkshires. On a mountain of similar altitude, also covered in snow, albeit not so much, and none on the sun splashed open summit where we brewed up for lunch, we rode bikes with no more gears than Wayfarer and his companions would have had. There was some walking, some falling down, and an exhilarating, occasionally hair-raising ride down the north slope of the mountain. Thus on the 88th anniversary of Wayfarer's ride, "we went over the top and obtained all our objectives." The last of which was the pub in Lenox.

January Workshop Day

Photos by Elton Pope-Lance

While walking his dog one morning, a neighbor wondered what was on the underwater end of a bicycle wheel protruding from murky water and debris in a neglected stretch of the Muddy River in Brookline, Mass. Have you ever been so tempted? It might pay to find out. In this case, it was a 1949 Dawes Courier: Reynolds 531db, Williams chainset, GB Hiduminium brakes, and Dunlop Special Lightweight rims. The V-CC New England Section devoted its annual workshop day to resurrecting this sunken treasure.