The Spokesperson

VOLUME  10  ISSUE  2                   VC SEVALE                   May 2009

Editor: Bill Douglas – Tel. 01684 573831 –email: billjdouglas@tiscali.co.uk

 

 

VC Sevale Open 10

 

                On a cold blustery Saturday afternoon, on the 28^th March, when short sharp showers and a gusty wind battered the riders in our first open of the year, it was a relief to see that of the 69 people who entered the event 59 completed the course. At headquarters, as the rain lashed against the windows, I was pleased to have had a genuine excuse, as event organiser, not to enter or ride on such a miserable afternoon. The event was won by Stephen Price of Worcester St Johns CC in a time of 22 minutes 17 secs.  Our own Mike Amery was 10^th in 23minutes 41 secs, while Sean O’Toole was 21^st in 24 minutes 39 seconds. Of those that finished 21 were seniors, 33 were vets, and three were juniors, including 2 who were only 13, and are to be congratulated (like everyone else) for riding in such uncomfortable conditions).

                For those who did ride there was of course the prospect of consuming the home-made cakes which VC Sevale members contribute so generously and regularly at our events. Thanks are due to you and to everyone else  who helped out on the day: marshalling, pushing off, officiating at the finish and serving refreshments. Especial thanks are due to Graham Coulson who gave of  his time so generously to help me set up the start sheet and who so efficiently handled the organisation of the results on the day.  We are only a small club, but we are blessed with a group of members who willingly give of their time and effort to support the few of us who are actually competing.

 

 

Sunday Club Runs

 

                Numbers are still down for our regular Sunday rides, which continue to start from Barnards Green on Sundays at 9. am. We have had as few as three on one occasion, with 6 being the biggest turn-out in the last couple of months. We have been to Evesham, Ross, Winchcombe, How Caple, Jinney Ring, Dinmore Hill and The Wyre Forest Visitor Centre, near Bewdley. On two of those rides the leaders were either over-ambitious or got ‘mislaid’, and the ‘official’ destination was altered. After a cold, wet miserable winter the last few weeks have seen a succession of Sundays on which the spring sun has often shone, even though there has sometimes been a cool wind from the northern sector of the compass. One of the joys of cycling this spring has been the profusion of wild flowers in the woods and hedgerows. Sunday rides will continue throughout the year, and a warm summer is forecast. Why not come and join us?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time Trial & Road Race Results

 

Bill Douglas – 48 years since his last open award

 

                In 1961 Bill Douglas rode in the Speedwell 100 mile open time trial, gaining third handicap award with 4 hours 39 minutes 25 seconds. Norman Powell won the event with 4.19.18ish. If Bill, having risen to the heights of mediocrity, hoped that this, his first award in an open time trial, would not be his last, he did not imagine that it would be another 48 years before he again got on the winners’ list. Bill had ridden twice this year on the K33/10 starting near Salford Priors before he competed in the Warwickshire Road Club 10 on the same course. On the two previous occasions gusty cross-winds had made riding conditions very hard, and the Warwickshire RC event was no better. Nonetheless Bill managed his best time ever for the course, with 27.30. A little surprised by this result, as conditions had been so hard, Bill was astonished to find he had won the first handicap award of £35.00. In 1961 cash awards were not allowed, cheap tubs, inner tubes and other inexpensive bike ‘bits’ being the order of the day. Bill wonders whether it will take another 48 years before he wins his next prize in an open event.

                Anyone who knew Norman Powell in the old days will be pleased to learn that he is still, at the age of 71, riding time trials on a tandem with his wife Sylvia. There’s life in us ‘old dogs’ yet!

 

Notes Fom a Tour - continued

 

                After my brief stay in Glasgow I headed north-east for Rowardennan Youth Hostel on the shores of Loch Lomond. I spent only one night here before I was overtaken by a vicious pain in my right side.  The doctor I consulted directed me to the nearest hospital in Alexandria, where I was admitted, examined and given a bed in a ward. The doctor who examined me said the source of the pain was in the wrong place for appendicitis, but he could not suggest what was actually causing the problem. He gave me some pain-killers which helped a little, but the pain continued for another forty-eight hours before easing off. After four nights I was discharged and strongly advised to return home, where my own doctor could keep an eye on me. The pain had now disappeared altogether and I was  tempted to ignore this advice, but eventually left my bike locked up in the nearest railway station before making my way south. A week later, with no recurrence of the pain, but no indication from my doctor as to what might have caused it, I returned to Alexandria to pick up my bike and continue my necessarily truncated tour. To this day I do not know what caused that pain, although I did get regular if less severe reminders of it for about fifteen years in the ‘sixties and ‘seventies.

                I headed for the romantic sounding ‘Kyles of Bute’ on the south west coast of Scotland. A kyle is a narrow strait, a word which perfectly describes the lochs which divide the long fingers of land which thrust into the North Atlantic and point the way to Northern Ireland. In these lochs are hidden Britain’s nuclear submarines. The roads around the Kyles of Bute were very narrow single track with passing places. Grass grew for miles up the centre of these roads, and one saw very few motor vehicles all day. In the fields the rounded mounds of hand-stacked hay looked  like so many stone-age standing stones. As I swooped around one corner after a brief descent I was confronted by a very large bull, who had obviously broken out through the damaged gate on my right and  was doing his best to have his wicked way in the middle of the road with a herd of heifers who had somehow got out of the field on my left. There was no way I was going to attempt to get past the bull’s harem, so I rode into the field on my right and made my way parallel with the road until I found another gate in the wall and could get back onto the road. I stopped at the next farm I came to and called out to two men standing by a Land Rover that there was a bull with some cows on the road about a mile back. From the way they swore and then leapt into the Land Rover and tore off up the road I guessed that having the bull impregnate the heifers was not part of their breeding plan. Spoilsports!

                Tighnabruaich Youth Hostel sits set back from the road with a view of the Isle of Bute. Glasgow is very close as the crow flies, but there was a real feeling of remoteness at this place. The building itself was a largeVictorian House, which had obviously once belonged to a wealthy owner. The wood-panelled rooms were large with high, intricately plastered ceilings. What I recall most however were the beautiful stained glass inserts set into the windows  on the staircase. I seem to recall they featured a number of Scottish heroes: Robert the Bruce, William Wallace and Sir Walter Scott. There were only two other hostellers in the hostel, and for some reason we were given a large bunkroom each.

                Arran had been on my original itinerary, but my mysterious ‘illness’ and convalescence meant I had to shorten my route, so I made my way back to Loch Lomond, through Crianlarich, Tyndrum and past the Bridge of Orchy. After the long straight beyond Orchy I climbed up the bends onto Rannoch Moor and on to the Head of Glencoe. If the mountains I had passed further south had been impressive I was completely unprepared for the grandeur which awaited me as I entered Glencoe. On my left the massive bulk of Buchaille Etive Moor dominated the landscape. It would be another twenty-five years before I climbed, with ice-axe and crampons, to the top of that iconic peak. The road down the Glen was then little wider than the lanes in the Kyles of Bute. Now, after the construction of the new road  it is very difficult to discover traces of the road I took, but they do exist, almost completely overgrown with grass and heather. On my right the great ridge of Aonach Eagach, one of the best expeditions on the Scottish Mainland, followed me all the way down the glen to the hostel.  Here I discovered that the infamous name of the Campbell Clan, and their part in the massacre of Glencoe, could still evoke anger, distrust and even hatred.

                In 1964 the road north through Fort William to Spean Bridge, then alongside Loch Lochy to Invergarry, was busy at times, but not frantic with traffic. Cycling along it one could relax and admire the scenery. In recent years I have watched in disbelief as heavily laden cyclists toil along the same narrow roads, as a seemingly endless succession of coaches, heavy lorries, caravans and other vehicles roar past them, enveloping them in diesel fumes.

                From Invergarry the A87 climbed high above Loch Garry. For much of the way to The Kyle of Lochalsh the road was being upgraded from a narrow single track, with  passing places, and  one had to ride for long stretches where the top surface had been scraped off. I rode in constant expectation of punctures or more serious blowouts as I rattled through patches of sharp pebbles and mud. At Loch Cluanie the old road was still in place and the going was easier, and I could really enjoy the long descent to Shiel Bridge, with the Five Sisters to the north and the Saddle to the south. It had been a long day so I turned aside to Ratagan Youth Hostel, where the views across Loch Duich to the Five Sisters must be one of the finest in Great Britain.

                After the long haul from Fort William it was a short ride to Broadford on the Isle of Skye. At The Kyle of Lochalsh I wove my way through the long queue of vehicles waiting to cross Kyle Akin and rode straight on to the ferry.  These days of course one rides or drives without delay across the new  bridge. Now that the tolls to use the bridge have been abandoned, after a long campaign against the scandalous way in which the building of the bridge was financed, there is no doubt that the bridge is a boon, particularly to the islanders. There is still part of me, however, that feels that Skye is no longer a ‘true’ island and, because of that has lost a little of its romantic ambience.                                                                                                                                                                                                              Like the Hostel at Ratagan Broadfod enjoys superb views acoss the bay to the Applecross Forest. Here I met two young Scottish Nationalists, who fervently espoused the Nationalist cause. As the son of a Scotsman I had little difficulty sympathising with their views. I wonder how they felt about devolution; perhaps they are in the Scottish Parliament. Although I had intended to stay several days on Skye the delays earlier in my trip meant that I only had time for one ride on the island before returning to the mainland, so I decided to  visit Elgol, which I was told had very interesting rock formations in the sea cliffs, and wonderful views across to the Cuillins. Within a mile of leaving the hostel I had to don my cape, which I kept on for the rest of the day against a fine but persistent drizzle. This was the first time I had worn my cape since I left home weeks before. The road passes the villages of Kilbride and Torrin before turning north-west for the head of Loch Slapin. Here I was confronted by a strange metrological phenomenon. On the foreshore by the loch four or five couple were sat in camp chairs by their cars enjoying the shaft of sunlight piercing the clouds above Bla Bheinn. One hundred yards either side of them the drizzle held sway, and  did so when I returned two or three hours later, with a gap in the clouds still allowing a pool of sunlight to flood the head of the loch. 

                The overhanging cliffs at Elgol are pockmarked with thousands of cup-shaped depressions, and I sheltered under them to eat my sandwiches. Because of the low overcast there were, disappointingly, no views of the Cuillins. It would be another twenty years before I saw them and climbed their jagged peaks.

                Back on the mainland I rode back towards Shiel Bridge before turning north towards Loch Carron. These days coaches often park high above the southern shore of the Loch to allow passengers  to admire and photograph the views. In 1964 the road was almost deserted. There is no doubt that the Loch and the village of the same name is one of the most beautiful places in Scotland. About four years ago, on a beautiful warm evening, I genuinely, if briefly,considered buying a bungalow there which looked down on the Loch. After a good deal of reflection the idea of spending weeks on end during the year in cool grey damp conditions diluted my enthusiasm, and I did not submit an offer. Lonbain, north of Applecross, was my next objective, which involved cresting the Pass of the Cattle, the highest pass in Britain. The smallest chain ring on my double clanger was probably 38 teeth, with a largest rear sprocket of 26 teeth, which would have given me a bottom gear of 49 inches. With two full panniers and a well stuffed saddlebag to drag to over 2,000 feet I was struggling as I approached the head of the pass.  A hundred yards from the top I fluffed the change down into bottom gear and came to a full stop, from which I could not restart, and had to push my bike the rest of the way. With a bottom gear of 22 inches on my Dawes Galaxy I would now have no trouble riding up the pass, but have not returned since that earlier ignominious defeat.  Forty-five years ago there was no road around the coast from Applecross north to Lonbain and out again. A rough footpath could be ridden for short stretches but most of the time the bike had to be pushed and even lifted around or over boulders and other obstacles. It would have been a perfect trail for a bold mountain biker. The hostel at Lonbain was so remote and difficult of access that it had be supplied by boat. In the university vacations the wardens were drawn from the Scottish universities. Lighting was by oil lamp and candles. Primus stoves were used for cooking if there was no peat for the cast iron stove. From the hostel windows there were spectacular sunsets over Raasay and Skye beyond. After dinner, as the light faded, the undergraduate in charge produced a bottle of whisky and the other two hostellers and I joined him in toasting each other, Scotland and our shared youth. It was with genuine regret that I left Lonbain the next morning, to push my bike for three-quarters of the twelve miles to the metalled road which led to Shieldaig. The hostel, which must have been one of the most remote Britain was closed long ago, which seems a pity, given its situation. Along the coast empty, roofless cottages were a continuing reminder of the heartless clearances when families, who had for generations eked out a subsistence existence, were forced off the land to make way for the more profitable sheep.  Two punctures, both in the rear tyre, and heavy drizzle did not make for the best of mornings as I pushed on to Torridon. The rain did not let up for another two days until I rolled down the pass into Ullapool. All  I can recall of those three days after I left Lonbain is the grim determination with which I battled the wind, which had swung around to the north-east, the pints of  clammy condensation which formed under my cape and the constant splashing of water up onto my already soaked and chilled feet. 

                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                Bill Douglas  (to be concluded)