RSF - The Off Road Cycling Club

The Adventure Starts Here

1980

"I'm lucky that mountain biking wasn't around when I was 20, because I wouldn't have won the Tour de France. It's my kind of sport — hard, individualistic, and not a lot of tactics." — Greg LeMond, 3x winner of the Tour de France

 

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We found a fine sleeper-built railway bothy with a good fireplace near the old Gorton Siding, and had time to collect scraps of firewood from the lineside before the first of the evening trains thundered by.
The odd hamlets and farms are left behind and eventually a sign is reached saying “No entry for vehicles”. That it was put up is hardly surprising, for in the next mile or so of road my 1:50,000 map marked no less than 14 hairpins, and the gradient felt like 1 in 3.
We soon realised we were taking more than an ordinary risk. The length of the tandem’s wheelbase, its rigidity and weight, and the swinging front wheel, meant that one had only to make a false move to send one or more of us rolling down the fellside.
One highlight of the tour was riding alongside that awesome paradox of modern times, the Iron Curtain. If a particular way of life is so wonderful why do people need to be kept in ?
Drawing near to the cairn, we noticed a fell-walker standing there. He seemed so surprised at our appearance that he took both our pictures. Presumably his friends would need to see the slides to be convinced that two cyclists could be that mad. No doubt he thought that we both looked old enough to know’ better.
We found that riding through the tunnel was rather an eerie experience. There was no lighting, and after the first 300/400 yards it was practically pitch dark; we found our battery headlamps woefully inadequate. Our only guidance was the white line up the centre and the tiny spot of light of the far-distant exit.

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