the youth of today...

 ...would never believe what two friends and I did one long half-term weekend back in 1978.

At the tender age of 14, we decided to embark on an adventure.  We'd pack a saddlebag onto our lightweight racing bikes and head off on a rather ambitious tour.

Day one saw us cycle over 120 miles, including a crossing over the River Severn on the famous suspension bridge with the motorway above us, to the youth hostel at Cleeve Hill near Cheltenham.  120 miles!  On a bike?  At that age?

No wonder we were so fit.

Anyway, day two consisted of a roundabout ride through the Malvern Hills before heading to our second youth hostel at Symonds Yat near Ross on Wye.  I remember having to cross the River Wye on a rope bridge to reach the hostel.

We had a whale of a time.  Riding our bikes, miles away from home and miles away from any supervision, meeting other youngsters (yes, girls!!) at the hostels, playing pool and table tennis and listening to music before collapsing into a wooden bunk bed in a full hostel dormitory.

In the morning you had to do some sort of task to help pay for your accommodation (I recall sweeping up the yard at one of the hostels) before scoffing down as much food as you could and getting back on our bikes.

I remember cycling over this!

By the end of day two, we'd cycled over 200 miles, and were faced with a 75 mile or so ride back home.  That is until my friend Brian's bike suffered a catastrophic and terminal breakdown when one of the fork blades snapped in half.

Our attention then turned, would you believe, to hitch-hiking back home.  We placed ourselves at a busy service station near Monmouth and approached any lorry drivers heading west.

We struck gold when a sympathetic driver heading for his yard around half a mile from my home offered to load our lorries onto his flatbed and drive us home.

Can you imagine any right-minded parent allowing their offspring to undertake such an adventure today?  I certainly can't!  They basically had no idea where we were going, where we were staying or with whom. Perhaps they didn't care.  There were certainly no offers to come and get us when Brian's bike broke.  It was a case of "you wanted an adventure so you have one"!