Last date for submissions
31st October 2022Date of publication
1st December 2022
We live in a great area for cycling; lots of choices from gentle trips round the farm tracks on mountain bikes, to serious single track excitement in Pitmedden Forest, to all those quiet back roads offering fantastic road cycling
So perhaps it’s not surprising that Abernethy Bike Club, or the ABC to its friends, has formed over the past 5 years or so. The ABC is a very informal group of cyclists from the village, of both genders and a variety of ages which has grown from an original group of 4 to over 30 these days. We generally have a club ride at least once every weekend (although the winter snows had us cooped up for a while) with a midweek ride as well when daylight allows. The club divides itself between trips on the mountain bikes up to Pitmedden Forest (cycling up from the village of course – no cheating by driving to the car park!) and further afield into Fife, and road trips via Dunning, Kinross, St Andrews, Path of Condie etc. We always try to start in the village, the usual meeting place being opposite the top of Sutherland Crescent, outside the Old Hotel. For some unknown reason a lot of club rides seem to finish at the Cree’s. We have a very keen ladies’ section who also enjoy runs through the forest and have recently begun venturing out on the roads too.
Several club members have taken part in the ‘Etape Caledonia’ 81-mile road race in recent years, including the 2009 event which featured the infamous ‘Tacks on the Road’ sabotage saga you may have read about. increasingly, club members have started to commute to work in Perth – and even Dunfermline – by bike.
Weekends away are a highlight of the club calendar and the last few years have seen the club tackling some great routes in the Cairngorms and the Borders as well as visiting the purpose-built mountain bike trail centre at Glentress near Peebles. It’s at Glentress where the younger members of the club really come into their own. They have styled themselves as the ‘ABCD’, the ‘D’ standing for ‘Devils’! As none of them has suffered a proper bike crash yet, they have no fear and are often to be seen flying through the air over the bumps and jumps while their parents follow behind, barely able to look. It won’t be long before some of the youngsters are entering competitive events.
If you fancy a cycle with us you’d be made most welcome. There’s no set time for our trips so the best thing to do is contact a club member and they can add your name to the contact list and update you with dates and times of upcoming rides.
Contact either Allan or Karen Lang at glebelangs@yahoo.co.uk or Murdo or Susan McGhie at murdoandsusan@aol.com