Often described as the world’s oldest off-road cycling club, the Rough-Stuff Fellowship (RSF) was founded in 1955 by a group of hardy cyclists from northern England who shunned smooth tarmac in favour of bumpy tracks, muddy bridleways and rugged hill passes. Their goal: to traverse “the rougher and less-beaten ways”.

Having lived through at least one world war, these no-nonsense types thought nothing of riding epic distances, often on single-speed, clunky steel steeds, whether to and from work or in pursuit of that relatively new idea, “leisure”.

A cyclist welds a crank near Sixt in the French Alps, 1973

It was a time when the British countryside was opening up to working-class people. Britain’s first national park, the Peak District, opened in 1951. Finally, the moors and dales were not just the preserve of wealthy landowners but ordinary people, who could pedal out from their homes in the counties of Lancashire or Yorkshire for a two-wheeled adventure. Off they went, fortified by flasks of tea, sandwiches and perhaps a puff of a pipe, wearing sturdy leather shoes oiled with margarine, woollen knee socks, button-down shirts and tank tops

Two couples enjoy the scenery near Sande, Norway

Rain stops play at Bealach na Gaoithe during a spring tour, 1972

Undeterred by the foulest weather, cyclists would head out in capes and bobble hats in deepest winter, pushing their bikes through snowdrifts, forging frozen streams and even winching down the odd rock face. Sometimes women were on the back of their husband’s tandem; often they were leading the pack.

Slip-ons are not up to the job during the Kidderminster Cyclists’ Touring Club’s annual run to ‘paradise’

Crossing Maize Beck in the Pennines, Easter 1966

A cyclist takes a tumble in the Lake District, December 1986

A group poses for pictures outside the Blue Boar in Chipping Norton, Easter 1959

These were the days before Lycra, Gore-Tex, wicking fabrics and aero helmets. It would be decades before the advent of the mountain bike, before carbon fibre and hydraulic suspension, dropper seat posts and disc brakes. Steel was king and frames should be sturdy, rather than light. The club was the brainchild of Bill Paul from Liverpool. In 1954, he sent a letter to the Bicycle and Cycling magazines calling for other Rough-Stuff enthusiasts to join him in a fellowship. As a result, on Whit Sunday on 29 May 1955, about 40 cyclists presented themselves at the Black Swan hotel in Leominster, near the English border with Wales, for the first meeting

A cyclist shows examines his bent wheel. They were able to fix it and continue their journey; crossing a stream on Corrie Coillie, Scotland 1959

A couple make friends with a horse during their bike ride, May 1959; cyclists enjoy a well-deserved rest in May 1959

A selection of snapshots taking during a ride in Norway, March 1973

By the first AGM in June, that number had swelled to what are now known as the “first 90”. This consist of a list of names showing that, from the very beginning,all ages and genders were well represented – something that is still notable in the RSF today. The club continues to accept new members of all ages, abilities and interests, who gather to ride variety of bicycles, from Brompton folders to suspension mountain bikes as well as traditional steel work horses.

Photo slides and documentation of various cycle rides from March 1973

The Fellowship is being celebrated in a hardback book curated from the club’s extensive archives. The photographs mark historic firsts, such as when Phill Hargreaves and David Clarke set off in 1984 to cycle from Derby in the UK to Derby in western Australia. They completed the first trip fully by bicycle to Everest’s south base camp along the way. Other pictures showed a group completing the first traverse by bicycle of Iceland’s mountainous desert interior in 1984 (club records record that the group rationed themselves to half a bar of Kendal Mint Cake per man every second day, as well as an ounce of margarine daily)

Deep snow on Grindleton Fell in Lancashire, February 1963

A cyclist on their way to Everest south base camp, October 1984

Fixing a puncture on Pas de la Corne in the French Alps, 1971

But these pictures are not about big foreign adventures, according to Mark Hudson, the RSF’s archivist. He said: “They are of everyday riding: of club meets and brew-ups and holidays and adventures; of big landscapes and tight thickets, and of exploring how far an ordinary bicycle and a can-do attitude can get you. In their own way, these women and men were pioneers, pedalling and carrying their bikes where angels feared to tread. Their exploits are a hidden corner of the history not only of cycling, but of British outdoor culture, and this book celebrates their style and their spirit.”

Buy the book at RoughStuffArchive.com