by ChrisButch » Sun Sep 15, 2019 8:12 am
Long before mountain bikes were 'invented' in California in the 1980s, 'rough-stuff cyclists', as they used to call themselves, had been exploring he glens and passes of the Highlands - indeed cyclists were prominent in the development of the MBA. I still have a box full of the magazine of the Rough Stuff Fellowship dating back to the 1950s, which largely consists of personal accounts of treks deep into the hills. When mountain biking took off, there were lots of complaints from hillwalkers about the intrusion of machinery into 'their' territory - but in fact people had been taking bikes into wild places since the 1880s, more or less for as long as hillwalking for pleasure.
As for Cape Wrath - 'Cycling' magazine used to run something called the Cape Wrath Fellowship - you got a badge if you'd ridden there.