Cycling UK Forum

I must first apologise for using this chunk of the forum rather than Off the Road or On the Road but it is neither and it sees+mns daft to post in both places. I hate all those posts here which should be in technical or else where.
Anyway......
Is anyone here "mature" enough to remember the "rough rider" events of the post WW2 period? Sort of pre cyclo cross. Vague descriptions confuse me. Were they a off road event with an ill marked course, possibly longer than a modern CX or were they road events using unsurfaced roads etc which of course were more common in those days.
They strike me as a potential event for modern gravel bikes. Indeed many gravel events probably are these. I am trying to plan winter club events with some form of traditional structure much like the Chairman's 100 in 8 that I run at Easter.
Just trying to get a degree of authenticity to them.

There are a few discussions on here, and a long running thread about the rough stuff fellowship and their bikes

Cheers, been there but I was after details of formal events not RSF rides. From what I can gather these events were traditional club reliability rides. The sort of thing that happened in the winter or spring and may well even earn the winner an award at the club dinner.
Trouble is the riders of those events would have been very young riders to be in their 90's nowadays.

Vorpal wrote: ↑7 Dec 2023, 7:30am There are a few discussions on here, and a long running thread about the rough stuff fellowship and their bikes

A very good thread it was too, must re-read it at some point. That aside RSF rides were/are none competitive whereas, unless I’m mistaken, the OP is looking towards competitive events. It’s interesting to me though that such parallel activities took place and what folk learned through competition they were likely able to share in the ‘leisurely’ RSF type rides.

I’d assume you know about the Tyneside Vagabonds YTube but just in case . This is nothing like CX today

mattsccm wrote: ↑7 Dec 2023, 7:42am Cheers, been there but I was after details of formal events not RSF rides. From what I can gather these events were traditional club reliability rides. The sort of thing that happened in the winter or spring and may well even earn the winner an award at the club dinner.
Trouble is the riders of those events would have been very young riders to be in their 90's nowadays.

When I first started cycling with clubs and the like, around 1975, winter did see various reliability trials, which are perhaps best described as orienteering on a bike. Typically a route was described in terms of either map-references or well-known landmarks, with the "course" being defined as something like the shortest cyclable distance between each one, in a given order; or sometimes with enough landmarks to automatically enforce the paths from one to the next. Tracks and even plunges into the wildwood were included, where one did as much walking with the bike on a shoulder as pushing of the pedals.

The organisation of such events seemed to vary, with some setting off individuals a la TT whilst others were inter-club events, with each small group from a club set off at intervals long enough to prevent following the previous group without doing their own route planning.

The few I took part in tended to have a marshal or two to check that riders did go through significant points but a lot of it was done on trust. I acted as a marshal myself, a time or two, but it was a thankless task, standing about in the wet, wind and cold for ages, perhaps in some dank and boggy spot in the middle of nowhere. We all tried to make ourselves scarce when marshals were chosen.

As the 70s turned to the 80s, reliability trials seemed to fade away somewhat. The mad Sunday runs became a preference for most, with a winter week of no cycling except perhaps on some rollers in the kitchen stimulating the Sunday cyclists to attempt one mad feat of cycling per week, in any and all weathers. Hyperthermia and exhaustion were always near; and these were the events in which one was most likely to learn the true meaning of "the bonk" since energy was used up rapidly and all the cafes and shops were shut, out in the sticks of Lakes or Dales.

A couple of photos taken on such reliability ride days in (I think) the winter of 79 - 80 or thereabouts.

One of the earlier precursors of cyclo cross in Britain was the "Bagshot scramble" - basically club riders on ordinary bikes.
I can remember cinema newsreels showing it - riders sliding down steep slopes - I seem to remember there was a river crossing at one point.
what we called " rough stuff" at the time.

mattsccm wrote: ↑7 Dec 2023, 7:42am Cheers, been there but I was after details of formal events not RSF rides. From what I can gather these events were traditional club reliability rides. The sort of thing that happened in the winter or spring and may well even earn the winner an award at the club dinner.
Trouble is the riders of those events would have been very young riders to be in their 90's nowadays.

Ah, ok. I am not familiar with the event you mentioned originally.

There are a few clubs around that have long standing traditions of off-road reliability events & TTs. I do not know if any still use the same routes, but some have published partial information on their websites. Possibly the most helpful of these for you is:

Balham CC have published the route map for 1949 Rough Riders TT on their website https://balhamcyclingclubcouk.wordpress ... route-map/

And someone has attempted to put it on ridewithgps (scroll down the page)

Addiscombe have pages on post war time trials that were partly off-road, including some pictures:
https://addiscombe.org/acc-history/chri ... ar-men-tt/
https://addiscombe.org/acc-history/chri ... -women-tt/

mattsccm wrote: ↑7 Dec 2023, 7:42am Cheers, been there but I was after details of formal events not RSF rides. From what I can gather these events were traditional club reliability rides. The sort of thing that happened in the winter or spring and may well even earn the winner an award at the club dinner.

Reliability rides were common for winter and spring. I wonder if 'rough riders events' was an *informal* description or name for some specific *formal* rides or particular types of formal rides, e.g. some reliability rides would have had a reputation amongst participating cyclists in the area of being harder or more challenging than others. If so, 'rough riders events' might have been an *informal* name that was widely used in a particular region, but not so much outside it.

For example, this 100 mile reliability ride of the Tyneside Vagabonds:



And for anyone who has not seen it - 'Actually this wasn't the proper crossing...somebody had moved the arrows':

I'm not old enough, though I know the CTC DA's have long had a tradition of rough stuff rides. They formed part of their Best All Rounder (BAR) competitions from at least the 50's, though points were for participation and completion rather than racing. I don't think there was a set formula, current ones tend to be led rides, though I've seen reports where riders were given route sheets, or even just clues or co-ordinates. Rough Stuff Ride seems to have become the generic title, though I don't know if that was the norm before the fellowship, I've seen others listed with names based on location.
I've recently seen some 1950/60's photos from my member groups (CTC Derby & Burton) usual rides, I think the definition of rough must have softened over time, some of those normal club runs look considerably more challenging than anything we do now.

slowster wrote: ↑7 Dec 2023, 11:02am

mattsccm wrote: ↑7 Dec 2023, 7:42am Cheers, been there but I was after details of formal events not RSF rides. From what I can gather these events were traditional club reliability rides. The sort of thing that happened in the winter or spring and may well even earn the winner an award at the club dinner.

Reliability rides were common for winter and spring. I wonder if 'rough riders events' was an *informal* description or name for some specific *formal* rides or particular types of formal rides, e.g. some reliability rides would have had a reputation amongst participating cyclists in the area of being harder or more challenging than others. If so, 'rough riders events' might have been an *informal* name that was widely used in a particular region, but not so much outside it.

For example, this 100 mile reliability ride of the Tyneside Vagabonds:



And for anyone who has not seen it - 'Actually this wasn't the proper crossing...somebody had moved the arrows':

Helmets, layers, cycle gloves ???

I was riding with West Kent CTC mid-sixties.
There was a whole range of "Tourist reliability trials" .....ridden in groups like a club run, not competitive as such, the idea was just to get round the course in the time. I don't remember anybody checking that you didn't take a short-cut!
You got a certificate for completing each one, or you could get an enamel pin badge if you paid extra!
There was a 25 mile "roughstuff" reliability trial, inevitably using some tarred roads, but as much as practical on tracks like the Pilgrim's way which I remember as generally following the bottom of the north downs.
I think there was ;
24 hours, either 220 or 240 miles, I guess that was run nearest the longest day, in the days when you had "Never Ready" battery lights or a tyre dynamo!
12 hours, 120 miles, i think
100 miles, 8 hours
50 miles 4 hours
25 mile roughstuff, I don't recall the time cutoff at all, or what time of year

The British Cycle Tourist Competition (BCTC) started in the early 1950s. I think winners of each CTC District Association's local event would go on to compete in the regional or national events.

One of the classic events was the Balham Roughstuff, A 25 mile time trial that dated back to well before the second world war. Run early March on lanes and tracks in the North Downs south of London. The event was adopted by the Croydon and District Cycling Association when the Balham no longer had the resources to promote it. The traditional course included a couple of miles of unmade tracks, a ford and many hills including a couple of 1 in 6 efforts. Gradually the off road sections were omitted and the event lost some of its character., it survived into the 1980s. I rode it of the first time in 1964 and many times after that and it was certainly a tough event, and that was on gears imagine the pre-war riders on single gears!

531colin wrote: ↑7 Dec 2023, 12:46pm I was riding with West Kent CTC mid-sixties.
There was a whole range of "Tourist reliability trials" .....ridden in groups like a club run, not competitive as such, the idea was just to get round the course in the time. I don't remember anybody checking that you didn't take a short-cut!
You got a certificate for completing each one, or you could get an enamel pin badge if you paid extra!
There was a 25 mile "roughstuff" reliability trial, inevitably using some tarred roads, but as much as practical on tracks like the Pilgrim's way which I remember as generally following the bottom of the north downs.
I think there was ;
24 hours, either 220 or 240 miles, I guess that was run nearest the longest day, in the days when you had "Never Ready" battery lights or a tyre dynamo!
12 hours, 120 miles, i think
100 miles, 8 hours
50 miles 4 hours
25 mile roughstuff, I don't recall the time cutoff at all, or what time of year

I was a member from about 1996 - most of the events went to audax distances -100k/150k/ 200k/400k there was a "hilly"50k/100k and of course the "rough stuff". I did organise a couple 0f 200k audax events.

my most vivid memory of a rough stuff club run was in 1960 with an Irish club in the Wicklow hills.
Part of the ride involved walking through a boggy area with a lot of frogs and wading through a river.