FANS of sporting nostalgia are now able to discover the long and colourful history of one of Oxford’s oldest cycling clubs.

Oxonian Cycling Club is celebrating its 88th anniversary this year and to mark the occasion one members has published a new book, Flying Wheels, detailing the club’s history from its early years training on grass tracks up to the present day.

Laying the club’s history bare is author Robert Forster, a member for the past five years.

A keen cyclist as a child, Mr Forster previously worked as a writer for running magazine Athletics Weekly, and leapt at the opportunity to take on the challenge.

The Shipton-under-Wychwood resident, 64, said: “I’ve always been a runner and have done marathons in the past, but it’s hard going in your 60s so I went for something easier like cycling.

“I found the task of writing this book an absolute pleasure. It’s a sport I love in a county I love, what’s not to like?”

Oxonians is the biggest cycling club in Oxfordshire with nearly 200 members.

It was formed in 1927 and is still going strong almost a century later.

The book also lifts the lid on some of the more unusual incidents to have happened in the club over the years. Take the unfortunate tale of one rider during a race in Wolverhampton, whose talent was overshadowed by his recklessness when he slipped off a canal towpath and plunged into the water.

As Mr Forster points out, having a long-standing club does not mean members will always behave like perfect angels.

“A favourite trick played by riders who stopped for afternoon tea on a Sunday ride was to sneakily put a brick or two in a fellow rider’s saddle bag,” he said. “So when they set off again, the effects were obvious.”

And in 1961, a club member was fined by the police for riding down the M6.

But the award for most competitive rider goes to one rebellious member, who in the 1990s was banned for three months after being caught hitching a ride on the back of a steamroller during the club’s 25-mile time trial.

Most notably the book emphasises the vast difference between Oxonians’ humble beginnings and the modern day.

With conditions which would seem totally alien to today’s cycling superstars, early members had to contend with grass race courses marked with pegs on the bends with the straights largely unmarked, a laid-back approach typical of most meetings. The 80-page edition was published shortly before Christmas and took Mr Forster 18 months to research and write.

Mr Forster said: “I collected the information from talking to people within the club, and spent an awful lot of time looking through minutes of every club meeting, which have been held since it began.”

The book has so far had a positive reception from members and the wider cycling community in Oxfordshire, with 200 copies being printed for sale.

* Details on how to buy the book, priced at £8 plus £2 p&p where necessary, can be found at oxoniancc.co.uk or by calling Mr Forster on 01993 831596.