RSF - The Off Road Cycling Club

The Adventure Starts Here

1971

“Socialism can only arrive by bicycle.” -  José Antonio Viera-Gallo, Chilean poltician

 

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Ahead of me the ground was dropping towards the con fluence of two streams, which by map-reading and guesswork, I decided was at Tom's Hill Barrows (G.R. 163/797434). It was a delightful spot, the only sounds being the streams and a few sheep, who didn’t seem to mind having a cyclist around. The stream flowed away down a rocky-sided valley and eventually joined Badgworthy Water. The only trouble was that I should have been at Tom’s Hill farm, nearly a mile to the east !
What visions of smugglers are conjured up in the heads of any Northumbrian by the mention of the “Salters Road”! This road (or track, it is little more) was used from very early times to carry goods from England to Scotland and vice-versa, but it was made notorious by its use, just before the union of the crowns, for smuggling salt and whisky. These two commodities were comparatively cheap in Scotland
Our journey starts when we leave Birmingham on Thursday evening and motor to London Airport. Our cycles are handed in and the car garaged for the duration. Just 2:1/2 hours later the pilot puts down his flaps and we circle the Rock of Gibraltar to touch down in the dark on an airstrip which is built out into the sea (hope the brakes work!) and at 11-30 p.m. we are handing our cycles to the night porter at Hotel Victoria in Main Street (previously booked bed and breakfast by letter).
Loughrigg Fell, is only a little hill, a mere 1,101 feet in height at the summit cairn, yet it is one of lakeland’s best-loved and beautiful hills. For what it lacks in altitude is compensated by its wonderful position, surrounded on all sides by higher mountains. The views from it are unsurpassed, and as it is criss-crossed by many paths, it is the ideal rough-stuffer’s mountain.
Curving past Ben Alder Lodge, the road soon reached the shores of Loch Ericht, and 1 rode along a not too bad road, with marvellous panoramas of the loch, but the light too far gone for photographs. About eight, Dalwhinnie came in sight, and as the road turned parallel to the railway (the Perth-Inverness main line, of course, not the Rannoch Moor railway) I came onto smooth tarmac. It was like a heavenly carpet !

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