COXWOLD Sunday, and Solomon in all his glory may not have been arrayed like the colourful crowd - Lycra for like - assembled in St Michael's. It is the 75th annual Cyclists Touring Club service, the one at which the Kingdom of God was once likened unto the cyclists caf at Gargrave - the congregation had nodded, knowingly - the one they have to come back for.

The cyclists' service has been held at Coxwold since 1927 when Gibson Black - then Vicar of the North Yorkshire parish - encountered Bill and Nora Cooke from Darlington and decided that whilst the Fauconberg Arms might assuage their physical needs there was a spiritual thirst, too.

Black had previously been in Hull, where he held special services for the trawlermen. It is rather easier to find an appropriate biblical text for fishermen than it is for pedal cyclists and for three quarters of a century they've been trying to improve on the bit in Ezekiel about wheels within wheels, or some such. Since most of the rest of Ezekiel appears to be about fornication, it was probably wise to stop there.

After the First World War, they reckon, there were 200 similar services. Now just two remain part of the CT scene, at Meriden in middle England and at Coxwold, beneath the Hambleton Hills, where a scriptural freewheeler once wore a T-shirt with the message that in six days God made the heaven and earth and on the seventh he went cycling.

"I'm not sure that's strictly true," says Peter Gray, the Coxwold co-ordinator, "but the service is certainly a chance to give thanks for the beauty all around us. You can stop when you're cycling in the countryside and realise that there has to be something else."

It's little changed, still begins with He Who Would Valiant Be, ends with O Worship the King, includes the 23rd Psalm and Rise Up Ye Men of God. There's also a prayer, ever more relevant, for road users - "Give to us and all who use the roads the spirit of courtesy and goodwill, of carefulness and self-control, that by our thought for others we may be preserved from needless danger and sudden death."

First, there is the gathering at the village hall, the rapturous reunion, the feeding of the five hundred and the recounting of the only known joke about a vicar's bike. Since it also concerns the seventh commandment, it may not be repeated here.

There are sit up and begs and lay down and dies - it is a very hot day - boy racers and gentleman tourers, penny farthings and tandems with a wheeled baby seat, perhaps known as twopence ha'pennies. There are bikes with names like Joe Waugh, Claud Butler and Dave Mellor and there is Arthur Rodgers from Romanby, Northallerton, who attended his first cyclists' service in 1929, missed out on secret service during the war but has attended ever since. He will be 90 next month, has a heart pacemaker and a newly replaced hip. "Last year I couldn't have crawled here," says Arthur. "Next year I hope to be back on my bike."

Pat and Bruce Graham have been coming since 1954, moved from Darlington to Dumfries, have arrived with their bikes on the car roof. "You take your life in your hands on the main roads these days," says Pat. "Nerves of steel," says Bruce.

St Michael's, built in 1420 and famed both for its octagonal tower and its links with the author Lawrence Sterne, overflows so greatly - like unto the cyclists' caf at Gargrave, perhaps - that we sit in the organ loft.

Probably it was much the size of Maurice Bartlett's loft, but there are 84 precious bikes - "classic lightweights" - in his. "Hand built, not shot together on a jig," says Maurice. It is perhaps prudent not to reveal his address.

Kevin Mayne, the CTC's national director, presents church warden Dorothy Burton with a "certificate of commendation" to mark the village's 75 years of hospitality, Kathy White sings The Holy City, Ted King, CTC vice-president, reads the Insouciants' Charter from St Matthew about considering the lilies of the field (and about Solomon in all his glory.)

Dr David Hope, kind enough to commiserate over the Arsenal ("I understand you were robbed") becomes the sixth Archbishop of York to attend the service, a succession of preachers that has included several other bishops, but only two laymen. One, Mr Des Reed in 1994, so warmed to his theme that Peter Gray had to remind him that many of those present had no lights on their machines. It was euphemistic. He meant "On yer bike."

Dr Hope hadn't found a biblical text about Sturmey Archer gears either, stuck to one from the reading, recalled that he and his twin sister used to fight over front seat on their father's three wheeled tandem. When Hull was under enemy attack they considered the bike's preservation of greater priority than their own, tried to get it into the air raid shelter and discovered not only that it had blocked the entrance but that everyone else was outside, too. "Thankfully," he added, "the air raid siren was a false alarm."

The congregation applauded, something to which not even archbishops are accustomed. The sermon had lasted little more then ten minutes, the service 45, with still six hours to lighting up time. The congregation wheeled joyfully homewards, downhill all the way.

Published: Saturday, May 19, 2001