RSF - The Off Road Cycling Club

The Adventure Starts Here

2003

“Those who wish to control their own lives and move beyond existence as mere clients and consumers — those people ride a bike.” — Wolfgang Sachs, German author and academic

 

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My tour started at Blair Atholl — convenient for the first night’s camp and a site to leave the car. From here, a good track leads up Glen Tilt, through a magnificent woodland with views of the river cascading through the rocky gorge. I saw my first red squirrel on a bird feeder at the entrance, and a whole multitude of bird life in the woods. It was early May and as usual midge-free, warm and sunny. The Tilt track is easily rideable for over ten miles and the end of the land rover track, which would take walkers all day, is reached in less than two hours.
I told the dapper little barber where I was heading. "Whoa!" Sammy put down the electric shaver he had just picked up and thwacked his hand against his forehead. "You're not cycling to Gerlach? Across the Black Rock Desert? Hey, Roy...!" After three months in the saddle I was treating myself to a shave, waiting for Winnemucca to wake up so I could buy supplies. A taller, thinner dapper barber appeared from the back. "You serious?," Roy asked. "I mean, there's nothing out there except too much sun. People die out there, man."
Between January and March 2002 it was possible to travel anywhere on the National Express network for £10 return, if you’re over 50. I’d already visited the S.W. Lancs group; now it was the turn of the Vagabonds. The bus was just two minutes late into Dundee, Magonigal’s Tay was an inky black, but I was safely across. At Midcraigs I was met by Margaret; George would be in later. There’s a cat and a pup named Quanto on loan from the R.N.I.B. Quanto has sharp teeth: I now have a nipped water bottle.

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