RSF - The Off Road Cycling Club

The Adventure Starts Here

1994

"The more you ride a bicycle the more bike molecules rub off on you and the more your molecules rub off on the bike. After extended periods of time cyclists be seen leaning against walls bike-wise and bikes - I hear - occasionally find their own way home from the pub"  Flan O'Brien - Irish novelist and playwright

 

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

 To many cyclists the mention of gates conjures up visions of rough-stuff, for there are few tracks along which one has not a gate or two to open. The gate is usually open sesame" to the freedom of the hills. In the halcyon days between the two world wars, many unfenced hill roads had gates, often placed at frequent intervals wherever a boundary wall crossed the road and sometimes on the blind side of a sharp bend. Many of them bore the legend "Shut this Gate and Use Cooper’s Sheep Dip". We used to think that the people who had to be told to shut the gate were not the sort who would use sheep dip.
Although it is quite near my home on the Shropshire-Wales border, on the Llangollen canal, I had not, since moving here in 1984, attempted earlier that well-known rough-stuff route, the "Wayfarer" pass over the Berwyns. I had read descriptions of it, but being a late returner to cycling had felt rather nervous. I finally made it in August 1991. You experienced rough-stuffers may think it "old hat", but it was new for me and a real thrill. Some of you may also think I shouldn't have been on an A.T.B. but it seemed much more sensible, given what I expected the route to be Pike, to use this rather than my narrow tyred road bike.
Postcard from Australia - Just another card to let you know how things are going. I've left New Zealand now and am in Melbourne. Tomorrow I'm off to Tasmania for 3 weeks. I spent 41/2 months in New Zealand, it's a very easy country to cycle in. I only did 3 off- road tracks apart from the normal gravel roads but these were the best few days cycling. One of these, the Rainbow Valley, was very similar to a Scottish Glen and was the nicest of the three.
Having spent the last season thrashing a tandem trike around the countryside with my racing partner Richard Hills, in search of a set of Vet's standards, and getting most of them, Higher Authority issued a decree that 1993 was to be a "jobs around the house year". By Easter a fair bit of work had been completed and a number of other jobs were progressing well, the initial enthusiasm for DIY was beginning to pall. It was then that Higher Authority announced that she was going into hospital during the week after Easter to have a recalcitrant tooth removed.
I have never cycled on any ‘stuff except rubber tyres, but I have done thousands of miles on rough paths and tracks! A more stupid or confusing name has never before been invented and likely to put off all prospective newcomers except Teddy Boys and Thugs which we do not include in our fraternal company. Kindly amend the name of the society to The Rough Tracks and Paths Fellowship, then you will get the new members, male and female, pouring in. Whoever invented the name must have been asleep or thinking of his rubber tyres. Yn wrlsog, Capt. Sir HUGH RHYS RANKIN. Bt FSA.(Scot) (The first President of the RSF)-
Norman Hodghton sent me a drawing from “Side Slips, or Misadventures On A Bicycle” by “R.Andom" (A.W.Barrett), published by C.Arthur Pearson Ltd. 1898. It illustrated a tale of two cyclists who took shelter in a derelict mill building one dark winter night. They lit a fire to warm themselves and were yarning away when in walked a strange character, who turned out to be a ghost, (perhaps of the old mill owner). I’m not saying that I don't believe in ghosts, but to me the attitude suggests another cyclist who had got frozen rigid riding an A.T.B. with wide bars. Does anyone have any other ideas?

Categories Menu

Search The Archive

 pdf