RSF - The Off Road Cycling Club

The Adventure Starts Here

2007

"If constellations had been named in the 20th century, I suppose we would see bicycles." — Professor Carl Sagan, US scientist

 

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This is not about remote Scottish glens, Wild Wales or exotic foreign parts. It is about an unplanned, unscheduled and completely unexpected circumstance. I had been camping out (motorhome, not tent) in the Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, car park, for the best part of a week. Not a bad camp site really, quiet at night, no interruptions but a bit lacking on a few of the basic requirements, like toilets or showers, not even an outside water tap that could I locate. However it was somewhat high on nearby facilities that you hope you might never need. It was also cheap, something like £3 for 5 hrs, or £10 for a week.
Misled by a number of sheep tracks I got completely lost on top of Broad Mea. Mist coming down and the onset of darkness made the situation worse. By heading due east and bog hopping I was able, after about an hour, to see in the distance the lights of some cars. Crossing several fences I kept focused on these. After a difficult time I finally made it to the farm at Low Thorpe on the A689 near Slaggyford. A swift ride into Alston and then on to Ninebanks YH, another eight miles in the Mohope valley.
The sweeping line of the Western Isles has long been an attractive prospect for a cycle trip and the summer of 2005 started to see the plans fall into place. The difficulty was always how to make a loop of it, given the restriction imposed by available ferry routes and also the prevailing winds which make a south north trip the preferred option... The crux of the problem is that you’re likely to end up in Ullapool, having taken the ferry from Stornoway on Lewis
One of the great benefits of attending an Easter meet is that you can join rides and benefit from local knowledge, the map can be left behind, and you can concentrate on the scenery and catching up with people you haven’t seen for a year. For the RSF the North York Moors must be one of the least visited parts of the UK I say this because I had some difficulty finding runs leaders. However one notable exception was Dave Hall who lead two excellent runs over the sunny weekend
In the back pages of the Chile Central book, there appears to be a road in Chile leading to the Argentine border, and a road emerging from somewhere within Argentina, that almost meets it, at the 4000m Paso de los Piuquenes. Now one can never have too many 4000m passes, particularly if they happen to be in a part of the world where the temperature in February is typically 30, so the pass could be forgiven for lacking some 5km or so of road. A search for more information on the internet revealed the truth. There is a road, of sorts, on the Chilean side, and a road, of different sorts, on the Argentine side, but the gap is more like 40km than 5km.
Time was June 2001, we were in Scotland again, way up in NW Sutherland. Rampant Foot and Mouth south of the border had suspended all rough stuff activity, not that I had done anything serious for a while anyway. Still I was hoping for at least one last foray to call my “swan song”; getting too old for lone rough stuff into wild country it was said. Scottish landowners however seemed to be very twitchy about any off road activities. Inquiries had revealed that intended tracks were free of restrictions, but even so there were numerous notices around to the effect of “keep out.”

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