[INDEX]|[83 Peak District]

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. Please take a

browse through the parts and accessory or the complete bike pages, to see if anything in our

substantial stock that may be of use to you. 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 twenty five 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 75, 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

that run about the woodlands and the grass verges.

The Byercycles touring team

The Captain and

The Navigator

In November 1976 we both became members of The Bedfordshire Road Cycling Club.

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)