We ride with Dundee Thistle
We ride with a Scottish club that has stood the test of time
ocial media took a very different form during Dundee Thistle’s heyday.
“See those gateposts?” says Jim ‘OCD’ Walker as we arrive for the start of today’s ride at the entrance to Camperdown Country Park. “All the local clubs met here, and they’d scratch that day’s route on the post for any latecomers to see.”
Not everything has changed for the better during the club’s 88-year history, however.
The scourge of Scottish cyclists is the A9, a monstrous dual carriageway with barely any concessions for riders wanting to cross it during its 270-mile length, and today’s cafe stop and midway point is on the other side of it. After waiting almost 10 minutes for a break in the traffic, we manage to cross and make it to our coffees and cakes in one piece.
At the cafe, 75-year-old Ned Carnegie pines for the days of half a century earlier when cycling was safer. He remembers a spot just a mile up the road, called the Barrier, which was popular with clubs for a ‘drum-up’ — rustling up a fire to make a cup of tea and fry some sausages.
“Managing to light the fire with one match was considered as big an achievement as winning the club championship,” he laughs.
In a perfect piece of cycling synchronicity, we vacate our tables just as another club — Dunfermline CC — is arriving. Pleasantries are exchanged — mainly about it not raining for a change — before we start our homeward leg.
Chris Mcclements, a scientist at Star-dundee that makes computer chips for space satellites, says he’s always surprised to see riders out on their own.
Air time
“I joined 15 years ago. It’s great being in company and having someone take their share of the wind. I can’t understand why cyclists prefer riding on their own,” Mcclements says.
For Lionel Wylie, a member for 61 years, the benefits of being in a club are obvious: “It’s about fresh air, exercise and going on holidays with your mates.” He and a group of the club’s “elder statesmen” — all in their 70s — are off on a cycling jaunt to Holland the following week. I fear for their welfare when Walker tells me the story of a previous foreign jaunt.
“We rode up the Glandon, and Lionel decided he wanted to walk up to the glacier so hid his bike in some bushes,” he says. “When he got back down, he couldn’t find his bike. He finally got down just as we were about to call mountain rescue.”
At the younger end of the club’s membership, Stuart Maccallum is on the brink of making his competitive debut for the club.
“An ankle injury forced me to give up golf, so I
joined the club about a year ago,” he says. “The advice and encouragement has been great. I finished sixth in yesterday’s Perthshire Challenge [a testing 100-mile sportive] and have just bought my first TT bike.”
Throughout the ride, Andy Fenwick has been pointing out sights along the way. A graduate in medieval history, he knows the location of every standing stone, Roman fort or other point of interest. But just as he’s telling me the history of the pub in the pretty village of Ardler, another modern-day scourge of cyclists — the impatient driver — shatters the peace with his car horn. It’s aimed at me, because I’ve slowed down to take a photograph of a sign — a sign that reads, “Walking and cycling-friendly road.”
On the final stretch back to Dundee, I finally find out why Jim Walker’s nickname is ‘OCD’. It’s because he insists on making sure his bikes and accessories all match. At the last count, he had eight bikes, 10 pairs of shoes, 12 helmets and 34 pairs of sunglasses.