RSF - The Off Road Cycling Club

The Adventure Starts Here

1977

“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them” – Ernest Hemingway"

 

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My two companions suggested that, rather than go round by road, it would be “just as quick” to cut across Wheeldale Moor by following the Lyke Wake Walk for part of its length. Since this is marked as “undefined” on the map, I was a bit dubious but, having been assured that it is now well defined, and bearing in mind the full moon (some would say that this explains everything!), I agreed.
I suppose most of us started our rough-stuff careers charging up and down the kerb with a pavement trike round the age of 3 and 4, and young Fred was no exception. Then came the smallest of small wheels pavementbike before graduating to Dad’s sit-up-andbeg work-bike. His first bike cost thirty-bob, second-hand.
We met a Scottish cyclist whose acquaintance we had made the previous day and, for obvious reasons, had been nicknamed the “Flying Scot”. He was having some trouble getting his bike with its heavy load of camping equipment down the steep slippery steps to the small boat. After several attempts he gave up the challenge, deciding to go round Loch Broom by road
Grace decanted me at Ivinghoe Beacon at 9 a.m. and, “knowing my way here without a map”, bighead promptly started down the wrong track and finished up at the bottom end of Incombe Hole with a consequent sweat ud out of it and an extra fence to negotiate. We get older but no wiser!
We were novices then and had allowed insufficient time for such activities and we reached Nether Hindhope in Kale Water in total darkness after roadless miles, including three fences, four wet streams, a couple of gates and a six-foot dry stone wall. A long ride along the lanes to the main Jedburgh road and Femiehirst Castle Y.H. completed the day’s ride of 75 miles.
The rain had been falling spasmodically all day. It was falling on the village of Lochcarron as, from the shelter of a shop doorway, I contemplated the enormous load I was lugging around ... no doubt about it, there are sometimes severe drawbacks attached to the business of being an enthusiastic cycling supporter of the M.B.A.! The time was wearing on, and I had just completed a track, having come over the hills from the wilds of Bearnais to Achintee

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