RSF - The Off Road Cycling Club

The Adventure Starts Here

1961

“One Thing That Cycling Has Taught Me Is That If You Achieve Something Without A Struggle It’s Not Going To Be Satisfying” – Greg LeMond

 

All content in the journals is copyright either of the RSF or the author or indeed both. It's use without permission will result in a stiff memo. If you would like to use an article or images please contact the general secretary in the first instance

eOften when the gang meet over tea at W...... , we talk about old "Whacker” and the highwayman. In fact it has become quite a joko and is revived each year about this time. Though Whacker is as tough a rough-stuff cyclist and enthusiast you could find in the Fellowship, he suffers our leg-pulls and taunts in silence, and not one word will he say about it all. Not that I blame him mind you, for you see I was there when IT happened and, to tell the truth, I do not know what to think. 
We had travelled another three or four hundred yards only, when we saw smoke rising in the distance beyond the tunnel. We surmised that this was the train approaching and slid with our cycles half-way down the embankment. We lit cigarettes and waited, half expecting that this was yet another false alarm, but the train it was, and travelling very quickly. As it went by it was only a few feet above us and it looked enormous, seeming to overhang the banking. 
Bourg St. Maurice in the dark, small hours. Subdued voices, shadowy activity, queer unloadings, goings and comings around a car parked in an out of the way corner. Splutter and hiss of a spirit stove, sending an early native scurrying away. Then the peep of day shows two cyclists slowly starting off, with an ’over the hills and far away’ feeling expressed in every movement. At least that is how we felt. 
In the Km 8 to the Breitlahner Hutte the little road climbed to 1257m, giving plenty of riding. At the Hutte (the appearance of which was rather that of a hotel), the road ceased and a well-meaning Austrian walker tried to persuade us to leave our cycles there and spend the day walking on routes which he recommended. In this area, taking cycles on paths seems to be absurd and ’just not done'.
It was Dave who initiated me into rough-stuff some years ago and not even in a cloudburst on Walden Bock have I heard him complain, but on this epic day he was unprintably expressive on rough-stuff and bicycles in general. Meanwhile Ian had lost his power of speech as well as a complete 11b loaf of bread! At approximately 7.30 we found the track descending and after a while reached the footbridge over the burn where we made haste to turn our backs on the SYHA finger-post 
We knew an eccentric old lady at Peekett Well, in the direction of Keighley. Fred and I had net her three months before in the course of a run in the Haworth country. She kept a small sweet shop in a stone cottage on the moor and served cups of tea as a sidelineo Although quite a dear old dame, she had become afflicted with the most primitive kind of religious mania and, when she served our tea, the good woman started a fervent discourse.

Categories Menu

Search The Archive

 pdf