RSF - The Off Road Cycling Club

The Adventure Starts Here

1965

“[The bicycle] is no longer a beast of steel… no, it is a friend… It is a faithful and powerful ally against one’s worst enemies. It is stronger than anxiety, stronger than sadness. It has all the power of hope.” - Maurice Leblanc, late French novelist

 

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

1965 Jan-Feb Vol 10 No.1
 
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The North Yorkshire Moors is a touring area almost undiscovered by the majority of holiday makers and yet it is an area of such outstanding natural beauty that it has been very rightly classified at a National Park. Most people still thing of the moors as an area of barren open country covered in heather and no more. Most cyclists thing of it as an area of huge hills disected by three main roads and of very little interest. How wrong they all are. 
1965 March-April Vol 10 No.2
 
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It seems only yesterday, yet ten years have gone by since that Saturday of Whitsun 1955. How well I remember that day a day that dawned fine with the promise of many good things, in more ways than one. By lunch time I was in Shrewbury ready to be “Going to the Meet.” This was the title of an article by Sir Hugh Rankin, almost the first of many routes that have appeared in this Journal over the years. 
1965 May-June Vol 10 No.3
 
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Again we lifted, rested, eased forward and again as the second tandem was manoeuvred over. It is interesting to note that 1 spent September and October visiting specialists and the General Hospital’s physiotherapy department to case a stiff neck and allied afflictions in the left arm. Was this due to over-zealous rough-stuffing — possibly, but I blame lifting the piano or decorating. After all, cycling is a healthy sport — even the doctors say so ! 
1965 July-Aug Vol 10 No.4
 
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We were up at 5-45 and, after fortifying ourselves with some more concentrated food, thus reducing our supplies to an orange and some glucose tablets, followed the river bed, there being no other passable route, fording and drinking the water many times and meeting with an occasional Berber horserider, and then commenced the ascent of the last pass before the final descent. The heat, combined with lack of water, was frightening,
1965 Sept-Aug Vol 10 No.5
 
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Pushing the bicycles slowly up the track, we entered a tiny farmyard, to be greeted by one large dog of the barking and biting variety. Pump at hand, I searched for someone to set us on the right track, and found a camping couple, hanging out the morning’s washing. ‘Oh yes,’ the girl said, ‘You can get over fairly easily. Just keep to the left of the white posts.’ What she did not realize was that we were cyclists, not hikers, and when we wheeled our machines past the tent, she gazed on, astonished..
1965 Nov-Dec Vol 10 No.6 (Index)
 
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Following Albert Winstanley’s article in the Journal last year on the bone in the bag. a wide variety of objects have been travelling in saddlebags, mainly of the Lancastrian variety. Recently Albert was again the victim ; after stopping at a cafe he came out to find a large crowd assembled round his bike. And why ? While he was inside his ‘friends’ had securely bolted to his handlebars a flat plate on which was fixed a lit candle covered by a glass. So well fixed that he had to travel home thus.'

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