Home New bikes and frames Parts And Accessories Touring index

Touring with

Byercycles introduction

                  Touring with Byercycles is a feature that has been added to our website, for the benefit of people who enjoy touring on a bicycle, or like to read about travelling abroad. It consists of this introduction, followed by a few short stories and illustrated reports about our own cycle touring exploits. They have been complied for you to meander through at your leisure by Christine Byers the shop owner with the help of her husband Richard.
 
                  To begin may I thank you for taking the trouble to visit our website.  pages. Some of you may enjoy reading about other peoples travels, or you may be adventurous cycle tourist yourselves. If that is the case, then you may well appreciate the following short stories about my cycling experiences over the last thirty two years. Should you be a complete beginner like we all were at some point, the tales may inspire you, to continue with your cycling activities. The more experienced cycle tourist may find a country or place of interest to keep in mind for a future visit.
 
                  First I will explain how I came to be involved in cycling in the first place. Until the year that I was married in 1968 my only cycling activities had been while I was growing up as a young girl and consisted of a few short rides around Biggleswade, my childhood home town and the neighbouring villages. Richard my husband had been a fairly active cycle tourist between the ages of 13 to 17 and then he took a cyclists career break, to pursue other activities. It wasn’t until the summer 1975, that we bought two bikes. One of them was fitted with a child seat and we started to take rides locally, with our daughter Rebecca sitting in the seat at the back. The summer of the following year 1976 was exceptionally hot, I was pregnant throughout this season carrying a very large baby who was later to be named Daniel. Three months before he was born and for reasons I still don't understand to this day, as I was in no condition to ride any type of bike. Richard decided it was time we bought a tandem. A decision that still amuses us today, as it was a strange thing to buy considering my large bump.
 
                 After the birth however, we did use it quite a lot, and it helped me become accustomed to riding for longer distances, and to sit on a bike for long periods. It helped to overcome some of the aches and pains, and soreness that a beginner usually experiences. Which is very important as a great many people who would like to ride bikes are never able to pass through this initial phase when starting. So they tend to give up very quickly and leave the bike to corrode in the back of the garage. Now I persevered and continued to ride, at first on a tandem, then later on my own lightweight touring bike and I began to enjoy it. On a bicycle it is still possible to avoid the main roads and have a day out in our lovely English countryside. We are very fortunate in this country to have a large network of small, quiet unclassified roads that attract very little traffic. With the assistance of a map and a husband who is a good navigator, it is surprising how far one can travel in a day on the nations back roads. You can visit the picturesque villages and see the vast assortment of buildings, houses and gardens that make up our lovely countryside. In our own local area  you can see an abundance of birds, deer, rabbits, squirrels and many other small animals that run about the woodlands and on the grass verges. The Byercycles touring team
The Captain The Navigator
 
In November 1976 we both became members of The Bedfordshire Road Cycling Club and we have enjoyed continuous membership to this day. While our children were growing up, the cycling for me was all fairly local with other members of the Bedford Club and was mostly short rides around the Bedfordshire villages of Cardington and Old Warden. It was still the custom for the club to arrange Sunday afternoon tea places, when we first joined. If the tea venue was fairly local, we would ride out as a family to meet the rest of the days club run. A good spread was always provided in the White Horse at Deadmans Cross Haynes and the Chequers at Potton. Unfortunately like a good many other pubs, they no longer exist as they have both been converted into private houses.
 
                  Initially after becoming a club member I did attempt a few time trials, sometimes on the tandem and once or twice on a solo. Richard became quite serious about the racing and was dedicated for several seasons. However he realised after a while that his times on the result sheets, in no way reflected all the effort and time that was going into his training and racing. An accident on the A1 in 1980 resulted in a broken leg and six months off the bike. The total commitment to training and racing, that a competitor needs to succeed never returned and he lost interest in cycle racing. Since that time we have devoted our Sundays and holidays to the much more pleasant and leisurely activity of cycle touring and have travelled through much of our own country on our bikes and many others overseas. On several occasions while the kids were young we ventured out on bank holiday weekends, to visit areas in the Peak District or out to the Cotswold hills. As they grew larger we became more adventurous and took them to the Channel Islands, and at other times we crossed the channel to visit France and later Holland.
 
(Christine Byers)
 
Next page - The Peak District 1983