Not quite there, 68 today. Out yesterday for short spin in the sun along the foot of the Correen Hills in Aberdeenshire.

I wear varifocals including for riding but I am becoming increasingly annoyed by them.

I have got used to the way in which they channel your view and you have to move your head side to side to look at the view in normal use but for riding this is becoming a problem. The distant view with the glasses is not as good as without and I would prefer to not use them. However, I then cannot see closer to view the track I am riding. I can’t keep taking off and putting on the glasses, so I keep trying to ride with them.

Also riding off-road they get shaken about and are constantly slipping down and I have to push them back. I also have a problem with dry eyes which makes them water all the time. This drips on to the lenses and impairs the view so I can’t even see properly through them.

I have reached a point where the glasses are affecting my appreciation of a ride so I put off going out.

+1 for bruneep. My wife insists on placing all her dishes and cutlery in the sink and filling with water, so not only do I have to put them in the dishwasher but I have to fish around in dirty water to find them. Any comment leads to a tirade of abuse about ‘being an a***hole’ and ‘get a life’.

Oruxmaps will do that, but you’ll have to download the map tiles to use off line before you ride.

Can one of these be used on a front fork? I have an old Marin Alpine Trail fitted with Pace RC36 forks with no mount, the rear subframe does have.

At a slight tangent here, I recently read a book by an American psychotherapist called ‘Staring at the Sun -Overcoming the Dread of Death’. It’s about dealing with anxiety about death and coming to terms with it.

We have in the last two years had to deal with MIL with Altzheimers going into a nursing home and dying, and my father also going into a nursing home. Both were and are being well cared for but had/have little control of their lives. I dread this happening to me. My father is 88 and I am 67 and, although I’m fit and healthy now, it has brought this to mind.

Wife has:
Warmblood mare (14) – has joint and conformation issues, so hardly ridden.
Dales gelding (5) – recently backed and still learning.
Dales foal (7 mths) – future project.
Coloured ‘romany’cob mare (3) – not backed yet.
Donkeys,2 (9 & 11) – not worked.

Due to lack of time, and time-consuming maintenance, she hardly rides. Also not a lot of decent riding from home, need to box to local forests.

I used to ride, worked as trail leader in Wales and Scotland for a while, but have lost interest. Second tang on expense.

+1 for Aviemore.
Could try Loch Insh Water Sports, nice cabins some with hot tub, use of water sports facilities, lots of good biking. We stay there every year for May Bank Holiday.

scotroutes- how do you switch ads off? Can’t see anywhere in settings.

Complete mess here on android. Almost unusable. If it ain’t broke and all that..

Same here on Kindle Fire. Adverts keep flashing on and off, individual posts disappear leaving a blank then reappear, page header goes off and on, CRC adverts appear every few posts and flash repeatedly. Almost impossible to read and totally annoying.

The whole thing keeps flashing, posts disappear then reappear, the CRC adverts throughout the page are f***ing awful. I’m out.

Not as much as my wife thinks I should. And I’ve not died of dehydration yet in 67 years !

Not as much as my wife thinks I should. And I haven’t died of dehydration in 67 years!

Shame, I enjoyed riding it although haven’t been for several years.

We have weekend every year, first in May, at Loch Insh Water Sports. Lots of self-catering chalets, some with hot tub, free use of water sports equipment for a couple of hours morning and evening, bar & restaurant. Plenty of scope for cycling and walking in Inshreach & Rothiemurchus forests. About 5 miles S of Aviemore. Have a website.

I have followed the instructions for the xml file and get the ‘OS maps with key’ drop down. But I don’t get the mapping, just grey camera images.

Is this method still working?

Driving down the M74, Ecclefechan always raises a chuckle…

Disturbed – The Sound of Silence.

Not a heavy metal fan normally

https://youtu.be/u9Dg-g7t2l4

Apparently 1 is no good because it shouldn’t live by itself. But 2 is no good either because they will miss each other when you do something with the first. So apparently 3 is a minimum

crosshair – second that! My wife has 2 + 2 donkeys and has now bought a foal. I am presently looking for a fat bike…

Aviemore – hired fatbike to try out. Rode Aviemore – Badaguish – An Sluggan – Forest Lodge – Ryvoan bothy – Aviemore. Great ride, decent weather.

Thanks guys.

We’ve got one connected to a ground source heat pump. House is heated by underfloor and tank is for DHW only. It takes priority over heating and gets heated pretty well in about 30 – 45 minutes then switches back to heating. Unfortunately we have found that it is basically too small for the house and we can rarely get even two showers from it before all the heat is gone. No room for a bigger tank, so we’re a bit stuck.

We’re in Aberdeenshire too.

My wife wouldn’t have her Lakeland terrier neutered; her objection appeared to be that he was a pedigree dog. But she insisted I had my Saluki done to prevent fighting as her dog was very dominant.

Upshot is they still fight and whenever a local bitch (all our neighbours have bitches) is in season the terrier runs around the house trying to get out, yapping and whining continually. If he manages to escape he will disappear across the fields until we find out where he is and have to go and retrieve him. He also continually ‘marks’ when out on walks.

I’m sure he would have been a nicer dog to have around.

Aviemore,loads of good routes,ask at Bothy Bikes.

However, at the moment be aware of flooding and high groundwater conditions after latest very heavy rains. All rivers are very high.

We moved up here, Aberdeenshire, in 2004. I was working as freelance web designer,wife made redundant from job as picture editor. Decided we wanted a property with land to keep horses. I knew the area and had friends locally. Rented at first while selling properties in Ripon and London. Wife tried retraining as a teacher but didn’t work out,then started work as home carer, now works in home care 3 days a week. I did website design until 2014 when I retired. We also now foster which brings in a small income.

Bought a property with 7acres in 2006, totally gutted and refurbished, moved in 2008. Paid for by property sales so no mortgage. Live just outside a small village. Prices are affected by proximity to Aberdeen and the oil industry.

Jobwise, you need to be prepared to take what you can find. Aberdeenshire is dominated by oil industry, otherwise a lot of jobs are public sector and low paid.

Climate, can be cold and windy.Today hovering around 0 to -3. Snow is not too much problem for us as we are on a road which is cleared by farmers in tractors but can build up off-road. Dry sunny days are glorious and not that infrequent.

Bike riding locally is a bit disappointing. Plenty of forests with forest tracks but not too much singletrack, and you have to travel to get to them. Local tracks on farms and hills tend to be little used and overgrown and often poorly maintained. Highlands not too far away and several bike parks if you are prepared to travel.

Overall, wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

Ride completed in 3 days and 3 hours – 23 hours total riding.

Now you mention it, I believe it did. Now need to find it. Thanks.

Tap O Noth – Iron Age hill fort
Rhynie Man – Pictish standing stone
Rhynie chert – early Devonian flora and fauna

Looks like an opportunity for someone…

Oruxmaps or Backcountry Navigator with downloaded maps to use offline. Work without a signal on phones. Don’t even need a simcard so you could use an old phone.

I’m probably a bit ‘old school’ about this but I think you shouldn’t be relying on GPS if you are intending to go out on ‘natural’ trails. The OS maps are a great resource for researching tracks and for navigating. (with the obvious proviso that you can use and understand a map). OS maps are not expensive and enable you to view a wider area than a GPS screen.

I use a free app on my smartphone if I want to follow or record my routes and this would provide location information in an emergency.

OK thanks. I hadn’t zoomed in enough to see but it is working.

Speaking as a Scotland resident, I don’t need to become involved. We already have a working access framework. But I wish this group success in getting something similar for England and Wales.

Hating it and feeling grumpy all the time. Now 66 and lost a lot of the fitness I had at 56 and can’t seem to get it back. Since move to Scotland 11 years ago have ridden much less and now climbs are a real strain, balance not so good now so struggle with technical sections. Hearing going, eyesight going (now wear varifocal specs which are a pain).

Worst thing is that I can see myself looking more and more like my dad who is 87 and in a nursing home.

Torridon – Coulags to Annat. Long push up over rocks, mostly rocks or buggy patches down. It is a footpath and probably better walked and enjoy the fantastic scenery.

+1 for Sligachan

Just registered and looking on line. Also downloaded app to my Android smartphone.

For the area where I live the mapping seems to be somewhat lacking (rural Aberdeenshire). Some small unclassified roads and several tracks don’t appear. Not suitable for tracking routes. Opencyclemap is better.

Perhaps at this point I might return to the discussion, as the original poster. I wanted to establish if there might be a noticeable improvement for the average everyday rider. I read the reports but am somewhat sceptical of bike journos comments.

I seem to have stirred up some interest and have found the discussion enlightening. It is obviously a question which generates much opinion but, at the end of the day, it’s probably subjective. I guess the only way to find out is to try and then judge for myself. It also comes down to how much am I prepared to spend to find out.

Many thanks to everyone who has responded and I hope others have found it has useful as I have.

Always a difficult decision. Wife’s mother was down in Cornwall, we are in Scotland. Management was impossible so we moved her up. Built a granny annex for her but she wouldn’t stay in it. Had personal carers 6 hours day plus Social dept. carers 3 times a day.

Finally wife accepted we couldn’t continue as it was affecting everybody. So she moved her to a care home, but she still blamed herself for not doing enough. Care home staff are now saying they don’t know how we carried on so long (about a year).

Recently my wife had to place her mother into permanent care. She has dementia and we have managed her at home for the last year, with much help from personal carers. Finally had to make the decision as we couldn’t manage any longer.

Homes can vary widely, both in facilities and staffing. You need to research carefully and find somewhere that suits the person and you. Can be very expensive if you don’t qualify for state provision, think up to £1000 per week. This will quickly eat away any savings.

Fortunately Scotland has very good support. Personal and nursing care can be funded which will help with costs.

Hope it works out for you.

Mike