The First Seventy Years: 150 - Cycling For Softies
Eric Biddulph organised a cycling club for the over-50s.
Eric’s book The First Seventy Years can be obtained for £10 by contacting http://mary@bike2.wanadoo.co.uk or telephoning 01484-658175.
All the cash raised by the book goes to a water aid project in Malawi.
I decided to organise a 'Cycling for Softies' group for the University of the Third Age in Huddersfield. I suspected that there were members out there who had not ridden a bike for years who were not being catered for by the conventional cycling clubs. The response was encouraging. In particular, a number of female members took to the road with enthusiasm. Some were widowed or divorced. The philosophy which formed the foundation of the group had five cornerstones: flat or only mildly undulating routes; predominantly quiet lanes or cycle tracks; maximum distance of forty miles; a ride every Wednesday between April and October; car assisted for some rides to enable the group to reach attractive destinations.
In early 2005 I suggested a cycling holiday in Empuriabrava using the European Bike Express to get there. A party of fifteen drawn from the U3A in Huddersfield and Halifax CTC boarded the coach for Spain in late May. They must have enjoyed it. 2006 saw a second holiday at a base in Narbonne in the south of France. Nine of the thirteen were from the previous year. A third holiday in 2007 saw us renting three gites in St Jean D'Angely near to La Rochelle in Western France. Fourteen people in the party, six of them for the third time, five of them for their second holiday. This tended to confirm the success of the holidays.
I have been keeping a record of my weekly mileage since the beginning of 1957. These were mainly 'educated guesses' for most of the time until computers came along to provide a more accurate measure. Each day I rode to college in Halifax I recorded as fifteen miles. If I rode to Skipton and back I recorded it as sixty miles. Training over Buckstones and back over Stanedge I recorded as twenty miles. Generally I recorded on the cautious side. Despite the lack of accuracy for much of the time my accumulated miles ridden is now in excess of 170,000.
During my early years of riding between 1951 and 1956 I did not keep any records of distances travelled. Some of them were considerable. It was normal to cover one hundred miles on a Sunday clubrun. I have probably ridden in excess of 200,000 miles since I first rode my mother's bike all those years ago. Not a huge average annual mileage but they do cover the whole range of experiences contained in this chapter. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have in writing it.
