Sat Feb 25, 2012 4:48 pm
I thought this might be an appropriate topic! When I was about 13 or 14, I and a school friend went cycling together around the area to the south west of Coventry. One day, we down a lane that ended on the old A45, I'm not sure where now, but I think it was by the Rugby Autocar. We'd been through a maze of lanes that went not far from Meriden and Balsall Common.
We came to the top of quite a long steepish hill, at the top of which was a lad who flagged us down; there was a bridge at the bottom of the dip, on which a number of lads were standing with their bikes. The lad who stopped us said "Don't go down there, they'll have you off their bikes, and beat you up. They took my bike." We discussed it, and decided we didn't want to go back the long way round; and I suggested we go down the hill at full speed, so we stole a march on these lads - all of whom were older and bigger than us. And it worked! We hurtled down the hill, and as we passed between the lines of the older lads, who were not on their bikes looking over the bridge parapet each side, I heard this voice yell "After them!", but it was too late, we swept through the gap and up the other side and away before they could get near us. We felt quite triumphant!
That was the one and only time either of us experienced anything like that, in hundreds of miles of cycling around the SW of Coventry; we went to Berkswell, Balsall Common, Meriden, Kenilworth, all round the lanes and byways. Maybe we weren't quite as safe as we thought we were!