This article from the Times could have been written for us. 🙂

Escape the fat mamils….

Join the RSF and find the corners of this world where most people don’t take a bike.

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And what’s wrong with being a fat mamil?

This fat mamil is in the woods as well. You can pedal away but you can’t hide

It’s nothing to do with “fat” just MAMILs. In short, the hipster youth are shunning the road in favour of gravel & since the launch of the RSF book their clubs membership has increased.

I do wonder if part of the increase in membership was due to the release of the RSF archive book where you could add a membership to the bundle. It will be interesting to see if numbers remain at the new level.
The RSF ethos seems to be a good fit to the increasing bike packing “scene” and in many ways, Rough Stuff seems to describe for the UK, what we now call “gravel”.
I am a member, and I’m a fat mamil!

Edit: qwerty said much the same while I was typing.

This article from the Times could have been written for us.

Us – fat, middle age, biffers on e bikes, who can’t leave home without artisan coffee beans and an Audi? 😉

Join the RSF and find the corners of this world where most people don’t take a bike.

And become the thing you claim to despise…

Here’s an idea – don’t join anything, don’t ‘become’ anything just ride what you like, wear what you like and ignore however other people want to categorise you for their own validation.

Guess it wouldn’t be click baity enough if it said “Cyclists go off road because they like riding off road”

I was once handed a pamphlet about the RSF by an old guy when I was on top of a Lake District Fell in the mist. It had some great pictures of riding inappropriate bikes on mountain tracks in IIRC Nepal in the 40s.

A very surreal experience. I wish I could find the pamphlet to prove I didn’t imagine it.

Here’s an idea – don’t join anything, don’t ‘become’ anything just ride what you like, wear what you like and ignore however other people want to categorise you for their own validation.

Here, here. I am riding exactly same sort of bike I have ridden for 20 years, wearing same type of clothes and on same terrain.

Worn lycra all the way so have gone from young man in lycra to middle aged man in lycra
Used a fixed gear bike so have gone from an oddity, through to a “fixie” fashion and now getting back towards an oddity
Have ridden on gravel roads before the term gravel became a thing and will still be riding them when it has gone away again.

The Times article is BS.

Many of the new joiners are in their 20s and 30s, Pat Langley, the club’s secretary, said.

For new members the RSF does not take any personal details apart from name, address, email and telephone; and whether they heard about the RSF through social media, advert in a the press, or word of mouth. No other information is collected from new members. So how can they possibly know the age of new members and why they joined? I joined last year and have been out on several club rides with them.

We have a subscription, so here’s the article in full (well, minus the photos of men in khaki shorts and bobble hats):

Cyclists go off road to escape the Mamils

The world’s oldest off-road cycling club has doubled its membership over the past year as more and more people steer clear of asphalt routes favoured by “Mamils” – middle-aged men in Lycra.

Membership of the Rough Stuff Fellowship, established in 1955, has surged from 500 to more than 1,000 since the start of 2019, as the group’s unofficial mantra – “the tougher the terrain the better” – strikes a chord with serious cyclists.

Members think nothing of vaulting fences with their bicycle on their shoulder, or cycling through a fast-flowing brook. Many of the new joiners are in their 20s and 30s, Pat Langley, the club’s secretary, said.

He told The Times that many of the new additions were driven by a resurgence in environmental interests, but were also motivated by the growth in cycling that has seen a new generation of Lycra-clad enthusiasts monopolising the roads.

“If you go to a park on a Sunday morning, it’s packed with cyclists on the roads,” said Mr Langley, an arboriculturist from Wandsworth, south London.

“People spend thousands of pounds on these road bikes nowadays and get very competitive about speeds and times. But the sort of cycling we do is not quite like that, it’s more sociable and exploratory.”

Overseas chapters of the club, which has just released a book of archive photographs documenting its early years, have been set up in the US, Japan, Russia and Australia.

A member for almost 40 years, Mr Langley has been on ten-day trips in the Scottish highlands, and expeditions across the icefields of Iceland. “It’s all part of the ethos. It’s a club for adventurers,” he said. “We aim to take on the less well-trodden, the more unusual parts of the country. It’s supposed to be a bit hairy sometimes.”

@kerley
Don’t worry, it will go in and out of fashion a few more times yet.

The important thing while it’s out of fashion is to tell folk you’re a trendsetter. Then when it comes back into fashion you will be looked upon as a visionary. 🙂

@molgrips
You know life doesn’t have to be that serious. 🙂

I was going to add “but we are the fat mamils” but felt that was self evident, and an acronym we wear lightly.

I was going to add “but we are the fat mamils” but felt that was self evident, and an acronym we wear lightly.

Speak for yourself I’m a PUFFIN (apologies to Alexi Sayle)

Edit: qwerty said much the same while I was typing.

failed to notice that “querty” is a user name and checked keyboard to make sure “fatmamil” doesn’t actually somehow appear (long day)

No other information is collected from new members. So how can they possibly know the age of new members and why they joined?

Well..

I joined last year and have been out on several club rides with them.

Unless you wore an elaborate disguise and refused to speak, I’m guessing they could just look at you, and talk to you ?

I’m a SOMIL (skinny old man in lycra), except when mountain biking when I’m a SOMIB. Where do I fit in?

Where do I fit in?

If you’re that skinny, loads more place than I fit.

@Nealglover You nailed me there! Maybe I look thirty years younger than I am 😉

I’ve no idea of the average age of RSF riders. I’ve been a RSF member for a very long time, and never gone on a RSF ride. 🙂

I joined for the information on routes etc, and never bothered about going on a ride because I prefer to ad lib my rides rather than ride in a group.

But I do like the any bike, anywhere ethos. Right up my street. 🙂

I think the rather excellent RSF instagram feed probably has had an influence here. Inspiring pics on gentlemen (and some ladies) doing what i would call old-school mountain biking.

https://www.instagram.com/rsfarchive/

Old school MTBing.. hmm.

The only place I reliably see other bikers whilst I am out riding off road is on the Rhymney Valley Ridgeway and at Castell Coch, in the fence line. Both places I have been using since the mid 90s and I expect everyone else too.

Slightly further afield the place I see most bikers is at the Wylie trails which are homemade and cheeky although probably a decade or more old.

So I suppose traditional trails and modern ones are both still popular.

Join the RSF and find the corners of this world where most people don’t take a bike.

😁 I might be a googler (grumpy old, old git loving ebike riding) but I reckon finding corners on a spheroid could be a wee bit tricky.

towzer
I might be a googler (grumpy old, old git loving ebike riding) but I reckon finding corners on a spheroid could be a wee bit tricky.

Ah, but what if it just appears to be an oblate spheroid but is actually a fractal construct?

Plus there’s Scotch Corner… 🙂

I’ve been to both Scotch Corner and Corner Brook in Newfoundland.