Since I was a boy I have used these old red roads (the name refers to the colour of the tarmac used in the interwar years when many of these tracks were first metaled) for training on the bike. Where as nowadays even on the most remote road you will see and be passed by traffic other than the odd tractor, when I was young you could plod round for hours and never see another living soul save for birds, badgers, foxes and the occasional deer. It’s true to say however that even back in the 1970s these roads were in a state of disrepair. Grass would be sprouting up the middle of the road, hedgerows would overhang it, potholes like craters would batter the rims and jar the shoulders of the unwary.

Of course, in the 70’s and into the 80’s I was not so aware as I now am of the appalling state of the carriageway. Today if one ventured out for a spin on these tracks one would find conditions remarkably similar to those that were found in the late 70s. But one would be more aware of it. There is one reason why, the bike.

Until I suppose the mid 80’s (later for many) the frame material used in racing style bikes was universally steel or it’s alloys, with the obvious exception of the few Vitus riders (mainly clubmen emulating Sean Kelly who favoured the 909 Duraluminium frame). Steel frames and forks had been developed to cope with the state of British roads – and it has to be said with British weather – and offered comfort and a silky ride even over rough tracks. The frames themselves were resilient, expected to last a long time if not a lifetime, hard to damage, easily repaired and (at the time) thought to be light.

When Pro riders turned increasingly to lighter materials, aluminium and then carbon frames and forks, the style of bike ridden by the average club cyclist followed suit until now many of us hack around on super stiff speed machines with no mudguard clearance and not much thought given to comfort. We come home with wet feet and sore backs, aching shoulders and wet arses, all in the pursuit of looking properly Pro.

As the nights are beginning to recede and the evening light remain till 7 or half past, the opportunity for getting out on the bike during the week returns to Joe Average 9-5er, me included. These past weekends then, I have been up early of a Saturday and bending my back around the byways of North Lanarkshire, attempting without obvious success to ride myself into some kind of form and/or fitness.

For these forays forth around the fields I’ve been using the Raleigh Record Ace. It’s a late model in 531c throughout, an unembellished, workmanlike, clubman’s bike, built in 1979 for middle income cyclists as a mid range “serious guys” machine. It has matching 531c steel forks, mudguard clearance, and a mix of components from Campag, Weinman, Sugino and the like. In many ways it’s typical of the kind of machine I (and everyone I knew!) was running about on in 1979.