This is an account of Colette and Alan Pemberton’s forays into the countryside by bicycle. Over the last year or so, we both found ourselves in the position of taking retirement rather earlier than we had expected, and so with all this free time on our hands, we decided that this was the ideal opportunity to finally do something about getting fit and losing some weight.
After quickly ruling out jogging, we had a go at cycling using the kids’ old bikes, and to our surprise, this has turned out to be one form of exercise that we can both manage and even enjoy! The enjoyment aspect is enhanced by the ready proximity to quiet country roads to explore at our own leisurely pace. Even the hills which surround us have lost some of their fearsomeness (well admittedly not all of them!) once we gained a little in the way of fitness, and there is always the prospect of the free ride down the other side to look forward to. What’s more, being able to jump out at short notice means that we can take advantage of breaks in the weather, so we can usually get in rides of 1-2 hours several days per week – more in summer. We are still very much beginners in terms of our fitness level, but you can’t rush it at our age, and our aim is to put the time in, and the fitness will come. But the main thing keeping us doing it is having fun, discovering new places and enjoying the great outdoors.
Now that a year has passed since our first tentative steps, we’ve decided to create a blog of sorts to document some of our excursions. This is also a good excuse to take lots of photos to put up here. It’s mainly just a bit of fun and to let family and friends see what we’ve been up to. But if anyone else finds it of use, that’s great!
WordPress update: the blog was started using a simple HTML editor in May 2013, then I progressed to WordPress in October. All the existing entries have been transferred but they are all lumped together into the October archive. Apologies if this is confusing!
Alan & Colette Pemberton
I am delighted to have found your blog! I live in Lairg and have driven past Corrie Kinloch on the way to work and wondered where that path went! Planning to try this route the other way round now it’s the summer hols.