I shall rack my brains.

Later, after a night's sleep... I can't for the life of me remember where I saw this. It may be that I was struck by the use of both terms in the same advertising copy and it just gave me the impression they were talking about different machines whereas they were, perhaps, just using the terms interchangeably.

Looking through a 1955 Hetchins catalogue yesterday I noticed that they describe their Path Model No. 16 as being available "With or without guard clearance.". This casts doubt on the common definition of a Road/path machines as having just that with rear-facing rear ends and brake holes. Although the last isn't mentioned in the catalogue I can't imagine anyone needing mudguards without needing brakes so presumably if guards were fitted, so were brakes, bearing in mind that people back then didn't ride on roads without brakes. Or did racers use mudguards on outdoor tracks?

Also, in support of path and track being interchangeable, in the same catalogue they say, in relation to their Path Model No. 10, "... we fully realise style of rider and type of track can influence the rider's choice of design." Perhaps the convention was that 'Path' was used to describe models, while 'track' for where they were expected to be used?

Back to my primary interest in bringing this subject here; what constitutes a 'Road/path. As such machines offered by Hetchins had forward-facing rear ends (as opposed to drop-outs (?) or rear-facing, 'track' ends) perhaps that is exactly what defines a 'Road/path' frame. Or was that just Hetchins?