This quirky British cycling tradition proved to be the toughest 75km I've ever ridden

“Could the group going off first move forward to the front please,” bellows Philip Whiteman, events organiser and club stalwart at Droitwich CC and architect of this morning’s reliability ride.

With Philip’s instruction, a telling parting occurred, as the riders with rapid deep-section carbon wheels and sleek carbon racers accepted the invitation and those with winter steeds rigged up with mudguards stood their ground, waiting for a group better suited to their form and ambitions.

Some 70 riders had pitched up at Salwarpe Village Hall in Worcestershire, for the club’s second reliability ride.

With a £5 pay-on-the-day entry, Philip didn’t quite know how many would show up. “I am fretting about the ride,” he told me over the phone a week prior.

“We’re registered for 140 with British Cycling, so 170 is, frankly, too many. If the weather is appalling, I don’t expect to have that many.”

The weather on your average reliability ride is often just that. Traditionally held at the back end of winter on the cusp of racing season, driving rain, gusting winds and icy roads are accepted features of these anachronistic events in the cycling calendar.

Today’s weather was set fair, though: damp underfoot from overnight rain but dry overhead, low double-digit temperatures and very little wind. In fact, far too pleasant, some would argue, for what can be one of the most bracing, brutal days out on the bike all year.

Plus ça change

Although technological advances in cycling continue apace, the long history and traditions of both the sport and the bicycle itself still shape its present and future.

Paris-Roubaix, the pro race that began in 1896 in northern France and predates even the Tour de France, may well now be run on cutting-edge bikes, but it still travels over the same cobbled terrain that, in places, is as gnarled as it was over a century ago.

Modern cycling clubs such as Droitwich CC still dip enthusiastically into creations from a distant past to practise their sport today.

Reliability rides fall into this category, even if few of the reasons for their invention still exist.

Dating back to the early 20th century, such rides, or ‘trials’ as they were then also known, were meant as a test of both rider and bicycle on the verge of the racing season.

Back then, it was very much a 50:50 balance. The rider, with few ways to track their form aside from time and feel, could have a testing ride out ahead of more challenging days to come that season.

The bikes of the day, too – far more modest propositions than those we ride today – could have a thorough examination, over grizzly terrain.

Having ‘ride’ in the name, rather than ‘race’, also served as notice to the authorities – at a time when road racing was less accepted – that the sight of scores of riders in a group was nothing to be concerned about.

Fast-forward to 2024 and the size of groups on the road was still uppermost in Philip’s mind, setting us 20 at a time, at three-minute intervals with the speediest going first.

Having welcomed my first child at the end of the previous summer and riding little outside of work assignments, I was happy to head out in the final group.

There was little reliable about my capacity to get round a lumpy 75km course at speed.

The route would take us south-east of Salwarpe, over the M5 and into a part of Worcestershire (and for a spell Warwickshire) that’s always up and down rather than long or steep.

Even riding in the third and final group, I quickly got the measure of Droitwich’s reliability ride, as we climbed a long drag from the village hall to the main road, activating long dormant muscles as I rocked in and out of the saddle.

Reliability rides have always been pitched somewhere in the space between club ride and race.

You’re riding largely with clubmates, or friendly faces from neighbouring clubs, on local, familiar terrain, but stripped of the niceties of the club ride – such as lunch stops and easy chat.

And while you’re having a substantial workout, there are no points or prizes on offer, just a few bragging rights.

However, there are no strict rules as to what constitutes a reliability ride.

We’ve outlined the idea of what it is and how it developed but, like anything that gets passed down through multiple generations, the idea has been tweaked to suit the prevailing trends of the time.

They’re often time-limited, follow routes without signage and demand self-sufficiency.

Droitwich CC’s take on the reliability ride is very much a product of its time: shorter, sharper, more focused and conscious of the time pressures that people are under in their private lives.

It’s also perhaps reflective of what Philip describes as the club’s “youthful membership… I’m probably the old fart on the club committee.

"A lot of cycling club committees are populated by the establishment, who are getting on a bit. I’m the oldest here, so they do have a young membership,” he says with a wry smile.

Riders of yore, accustomed to 100-mile reliability rides and transported to Worcestershire in 2024, would likely scoff at the meagre 75km route today.

For modern riders raised on a high-intensity winter diet of cyclocross, track nights and Zwift racing on the turbo, it suits them perfectly though.

Marcus Bufton, who went out in the first group and, as club chairman, is part of the club’s organising committee, agrees: “Me and others in the club did ’cross for the first time this winter and everyone agrees it’s put our fitness on another level this spring. You can also spot the riders who’ve spent the winter racing on the turbo.

"For some riders, today was their first time on the road this year and they’re flying!”

Having trained for many a winter on Zwift – just not the most recent one – I can vouch for its ability to send you into the new season on a flyer.

And crawling up the wretched slope of Shoots Hill at Crowle, legs like jelly, 9km in, I could see just how sharp people were even before the season had started.

It’s a mirror of what we see in the pro peloton these days, whether you’re Mathieu van der Poel, winning all year round on the road and in cyclocross, or Tadej Pogačar, mopping up in the Spring Classics and Grand Tours.

Winter is no longer a time for treading water or for any prolonged time off the bike.

While my ride partner Ben and I continued to chip away at the course, averaging an unspectacular but still out-of-our-comfort zone 23km/h, the first group were in imperial form.

Quite literally, in fact, averaging 23 miles per hour across the full route.

Philip’s route was a mix of twisting backroads and larger B-roads, but he made every effort to only take the ride down quiet roads.

For those riders up front, it turned into a fiery but friendly workout.

Marcus, who would lose contact with the pack when he got caught out by a red light, says it “wasn’t organised like a chain gang is, it was more like a race with people going off the front (and being reeled back in).

“It’s the first real club test of the year and gets everyone in the mood. I did a race the weekend before and was short of the level needed, so I benefited from today’s workout.”

Above everything, however, the Droitwich CC reliability ride was a chance for a much-needed social after the drag of winter.

“For regular club riders, it’s really a chance to catch up and ride as a group again,” says Marcus.

“It also signals the return of our regular weekly club runs, rather than the infrequent winter rides held when weather allows.”

Social Network

It was opportunity, too, for some inter-club fraternising.

It pulled in riders from neighbouring clubs and the invites were reciprocated at their own reliability rides at other points in late winter.

“It’s a good mix of different clubs getting involved in each other’s RRs,” says Marcus.

Personally speaking, 75km had never felt so tough. In the final run-in to Salwarpe, attempts to climb out of the saddle resulted in my legs feeling like soggy spaghetti.

My bike, freshly minted with some new wheels, a tune-up and a drivetrain so clean I could eat my post-ride cake off it, proved far more reliable than the barely functioning body propelling it. I’m sure others felt the same.

For me and them, it’d been both some undiluted type-2 fun – recognised only after the event – and a catalyst for bigger, less painful rides further down the road.

History repeating

Three icons of cycling’s past still delighting the faithful.