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Is nostalgia as good as it used to be? Rob Ainsley rides the 2024 Velo Retro festival on his vintage Claud Butler to find out (spoiler: yes it is)

Rob Ainsley

The nostalgia industry is all commercialised and corporate now. We did it so much better in my day… Joking aside, maybe it still works on a bike. In Ulverston. Because I’m here for Velo Retro’s annual vintage rally. It’s June, it’s sunny and it’s already hot, even at 8.30am. There’s nearly five hundred of us, queueing in the cobbled market square for the Grand Départ of today’s leisure rides: four options from fifteen to fifty miles round southern Lakeland, Coniston and Windermere. A few people are in period costume. Two chaps in plus fours and bow ties; a woman in wartime-granny frock and hat on her basketed shopper; a couple in tennis gear with a wooden racket protruding from their tandem’s pannier. Most however are in Lycra, often with a…

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Cycling Plus (Digital) - 1 Issue, September 2024

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