[CR] New CR sorta related event: "Rough Riders Rally"

Well, not entirely new and unique. In the late 70s and early 80s I belonged to a UK group called the Rough Stuff Fellowship. "For cyclists who love the byways and tracks" was their byline. They still exist! Here is their web site: http://www.rsf.org.uk/ There are great pics and route descriptions there by the way. This club was around long before mountain bikes , though some use them now. They used to put out a small format magazine full of fun stories. I have all the ones from those days. Neat ads in them and great ride descriptions, often quite embellished with local lore, spooky stories, and vivid descriptions of the terrain. I remember one called "The blackfaced sheep of Skye" about a fellow who discovered that the dung of said sheep served as a more than adequate patch for his flat tire. I did some of the rides over there in 1982. One was a barely rideable footpath into a youth hostel in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, in a place called Glen Affric. The youth hostel was called Altebeith and it was a couple of sheds, one of them heated. With peat mind you, and one of the hostel duties was to go out on the moor and dig peat. The hostel keeper would trudge out about 12 miles a couple times a month and wheel back a canister of propane for cooking. There was no electricity. The running water was in the stream outside. A lovely experience. When we rolled up to the door, there were several people there to greet us, from all over Europe. We had come in on this near impossible or impassable path from the South. They said, "We figgered you for Yanks. No one has ever come in that way before!" We were able to ride out the hostel keepers track, towards Inverness, and in about 12 miles regained the pavement. Anyway, the RSF riders would ride anything. Road bikes, three speeds, single speeds, even tandems, but again there were no mountain bikes yet.

Another route we picked was called The Old Road to Glencoe. It took off of a one lane "A" road with turnouts (yes they had those in that day in Scotland) and you had to go over a stile to get to the path. A stile is a sort of ladder over a fence. There is a pic of one in Gallery 1 in RSF. The road itself was an ancient road and not at all maintained. We did manage to ride most of it, though it was quite boulder strewn and washed out. This is wide open country by the way, and you can see for miles at some places. We spotted a Scotsman ahead striding along purposefully in kilts, tam, and with his walking stick. Around a bend he seemed a little further away. Cresting a hill, we look down and he was now out of sight. He was a fast walker or an apparition, I don't know which. We finally reached pavement at the ancient town of Glencoe. A fun place to dwell awhile.

Bob Freeman
Elliott Bay Bicycles
2116 Western Ave
Seattle, WA 98121
206-441-8144
http://www.elliottbaybicycles.com
http://www.davidsonbicycles.com