RSF - The Off Road Cycling Club

The Adventure Starts Here

2018

“Riding a bike is everything to a cyclist. The friendship and camaraderie you have with other cyclists… to a cyclist, it was the be-all and end-all of your life.” — Tommy Godwin, English long-distance cyclist

 

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Document: [2018 Jan-Feb Vol 63 No.1]
2018 Jan-Feb Vol 63 No.1
The Maritime and Ligurian Alps form a natural border between France and Italy: a sustained ridge with no dramatic summits but no weaknesses to encourage road builders. Only at the Col de Tende do they permit a road pass, and this was superseded by a tunnel more than a century ago. It’s a strategic land studded with the remnants of forts, and an old military road crests an extended tract of the border ridge, now on one side, now on the other. It’s a magnificent high ride. Some years ago we attempted it in early summer: too early, we were thwarted by snow.
Document: [2018 March-April Vol 63 No.2]
2018 March-April Vol 63 No.2
What I love about off-road cycling in the countryside is the sense of connection you have with the landscape and of course the seasons. There are landmark moments when I’m out on my bike which I only realise later that I’ve been waiting for to mark the turn of the seasons. I always await with great anticipation the call of the curlew and peewit up on the high Pennine moorland which marks the end of winter and beginning of Spring. The freshly minted greens of trees and hedgerows in bud seem to light your way home at twilight.
Document: [2018 May-June Vol 63 No.3]
2018 May-June Vol 63 No.3
Three o’clock at night. A tawny owl is hooting on the other side of the river Ourthe (Occidentale). A hazy moon casts its veiled yellow ochre light onto an empty campsite. Except for our tent. Martha is far away snoring in Dreamland, and I am lying on my back, head outside the tent looking heavenwards. Apart from the sound of the owl there’s only the soft murmuring of the river’s water flowing from its source northwards. Deep down in my mind my thoughts about the past three weeks wandering through the Dolomites and Alps start a series of reminiscences
Document: [2018 July-Aug Vol 63 No.4]
2018 July-Aug Vol 63 No.4
I was awake, this morning of a new day. The house would stand my absence for a while and I about the hills, or wade the burn, or simply not decide until the fork that makes us choose this way or that; all I have to do is choose my bike. When I was young and cycling was the way I moved about at all, I had a bike. The brakes were sound, the cotter pins were tight, the chain well oiled and fully clad in steel. I toured the north and carried shopping bags by turns
Document: [2018 Sept-Oct Vol 63 No.5]
2018 Sept-Oct Vol 63 No.5
My first visit to India was this Christmas past; a three week trip beginning near Bangalore then south to Kerala via national parks and coffee and tea plantations. This was not a cycling tour, far from it, however during the first few days near Bangalore I did manage one outing. Bangalore is huge, the “Silicon Valley” of India but thankfully my friends lived in a small town called Dod Ballapur, north of the city about an hour from the airport. A typical ex- pat compound but easy to access the countryside.
Document: [2018 Nov-Dec Vol 63 No.6 (Index)]
2018 Nov-Dec Vol 63 No.6 (Index)
JP and that all original ‘head banger’ Uncle Geoff, have at long last agreed on a ‘realistic challenge’ for 2018! Yes you guessed it...’The High Cup Nick’! But to make it more interesting we decided to go to the National Cycle Jumble again this year and buy two reasonably priced bicycles, ride them home, use them regularly, and then ride the High Cup Nick on them. “How far is it from your house to the Velodrome?” asked Uncle Geoff. “About eight miles I guess” “Can’t you be more accurate?” he replied now busily looking it up on his phone. “There, got it. It’s 7.9 miles”
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