What's the best thing about living in Highland Scotland?
The quietness, solitude, and scenery.
It really is! There's the hills, and the Glens, and the beach, and the lochs.
Now, everybody knows I'm quite an outdoorsy person, aren't I?
Yes, you are.
Quite adventurous. I like being outdoors, and I like exploring, and I like you to come with me but...
I like to go!
He's a bit old! [laughing]
My knees! It's my knees!
Well, it's not just that. I mean, the signs are there that Shaun's getting on a bit.
He says 'thingy' all the time because he can't remember what things are called.
It's because of that thingy over there.
Yeah, exactly!
He was on a website the other day and he had to put his date of birth in.
and you was spinning that mouse so much it was like you were on Wheel of Fortune!
[laughing]
But, it gives us that... not Ian McKenna. It sounds like that... Dilemma! It's like a dilemma because
we like to go out and do things together don't we? We do. It's like the advert. Do you remember?
We wanna be together.
"We wanna be together'
So, I came up with an idea. A cunning stunt!
A cu... [laughing]
Where we might be able to get Shaun out exercising without his knees just crumbling to dust on the first hill
Yes!
So, we've got ourselves a couple of E-bikes.
We have! They're fab!
Shaun thought an E-bike was like something virtual online.
I did actually, yes.
Yeah, that you ride online, didn't you?
[laughing] No!
Now, I've already got a couple of bikes. I've got a gravel bike which I go out exploring on my own with
and I've also still got that old mountain bike that I had on narrowboat Silver Fox.
Yes, he has.
Do you remember? The one where the bloke came and tried to nick it when we were in Nantwich?
And you ran after him, naked.
I ran, well, no. I had my underpants on.
You had your pants on.
I was running down the towpath, chasing him in my thunder crackers and shouting.
Thunder crackers! [laughing]
So, today we're going to go out on our new E-bikes.
We are.
Err, the ones we've got to try... Well the box is over there.
[kisses Shaun and laughs]
It's a Himiway Cruiser 2 Fat Bike.
Fat Bike?
Yeah, it's not what I thought it was when I ordered it.
I'll tell you why it's called a Fat Bike later.
You'll see why.
Now, Shaun wanted to build it but he never reads the instructions.
I'm clueless!
Yeah, you're like Homer Simpson building that barbecue, aren't you?
[laughs] Yes!
He just basically empties a box onto the floor and tries to work it out, like a jigsaw puzzle.
I can't be doing with reading stuff.
It never ends well, so I'm going to build it.
It's well packed but the bike does come part assembled. I just need to put the handlebars,
the front wheel, the lights, mud guards, and a couple of other bits together.
Now, you do get a multi-tool with the bike, but I've got my own socket set and spanners here just to make
it a bit easier because the multi-tool's a bit small for my massive clumsy man-hands!
[music]
And that's finished!
Now this is the reason I think it's a great bike for exploring the Highlands.
The tyres are four inches wide so you get really good grip on gravel, sand, and snow
Which we've had quite a lot of recently.
This 840 Watt-hour Samsung battery should get us anywhere between 35 and 60 miles per charge.
All set! Are you glad I built it now?
Yes [laughs] You can go out in confidence knowing that the front wheel's
not going to fly off when you go down a hill.
He says [Shaun laughing] Fingers crossed! Touch wood!
Oh, speaking of which, have you got any protection?
Yes. For your head, I mean.
[Shaun laughing]
Because, winter jumpers are not really good cycling attire, are they?
These are not, no.
Shall we go get ready? Yeah.
Three, two, one... [whooshing sound]
[Colin laughing] What's that?
Well, you said get protection!
[Colin laughing] You look like you're off Dad's Army or something.
Haven't you got a proper bike helmet? I have. Where is it?
It's in there [points toward the house]. Right, you stay here. I'll go get it.
[whooshing sound]
There you go.
[sighs]
My knees are getting bad doing all that jumping. There, I'm done!
[music]
[Colin] What do you reckon? [Shaun] Fab! I love them!
It's good to start off on the quiet tarmac road because you need to get used to the bike.
Now, I mean I've got a couple of other bikes. I'm used to riding my gravel bike out here and that
only weighs about nine or ten kilos. These weigh about 32 and a half kilos so three times what my
gravel bike weighs, so it takes a bit of adapting getting used to it.
But they don't feel that heavy when you're moving.
Well, no. That's because of the motor assist, isn't it?
I mean it has got a Shimano 7 set of gears which is all right but you still feel that weight, especially when you
start going on an incline don't you? And that's where the motor really comes in handy.
Now, the thing with that is it is going to use the battery a little bit quicker (yes) but we'll see
because we're going to see how many miles we can get out of it. I hope we don't get stranded somewhere stupid!
At the top of Ben Horn! [laughing]
So, we've done the tarmac road which was pretty easy.
We've come onto the grass by the loch which is, again, it's quite easy.
I think we need to make it a little bit more challenging and see how well these fat tires cope...
with the landscape. The roads were actually very icy, as you can see,
it's quite an icy day and there was a lot of ice on the roads and it was fine on there.
Didn't slip one bit! Let's take it into the woods and down the side of the loch.
[music]
[needle scratching record sound]
[crashing sound]
Well...
Maybe we were being a bit too optimistic.
[Colin laughing]
There's this really solid ice. I mean you can see it is so slippy and, uh, we kind of came over
it without thinking too much, and the bike went and just slipped off. Are you all right?
My feet, my shoes, are full of icy cold water now. I thought you were gonna say icicles then.
[music]
[camera hits tree branch] [Colin laughs]
A little bit of advice if you're gonna go riding in the Highlands in the middle of winter
Wear some gloves!
I have!
He's got his gloves on and his hands are cold. They're still cold!
I'm shir... shir-ivering!
Ugh! It's freezing!
But it has been amazing, hasn't it? It really is good. I never really appreciated how much
like fat tires help you keep your grip.
Behind us is Ben Hor... Is it Ben Horn? Ben Horn. Yeah.
I get Ben Horn and Ben Hope mixed up. There's loads of snow up there. Shall we go up there?
Absolutely not! [laughing]
I don't fancy taking it up there.
But, it's been amazing. We're just going to hop back on them
and we're going to get nearer home because
the batteries are wearing down a little bit now. We've done 30-odd mile altogether.
We're gonna go on our way home so that if we do run out of battery we're not too far away from home.
[music]
How's your knee?
Surprisingly good.
How's your shoulder?
Surprisingly good. [laughs]
Even if I do that?
Yeah, it's fine now.
I think it just hurt at the time.
Famous last words when you were stood by the loch...
Didn't slip one bit!
[crashing sound]
[laughing]
The lesson there is don't take any bike across solid ice because it just... fat tires or not...
Yes.
It didn't look like ice, did it? No, it just looked like water.
It did.
I felt a bit sorry for you. I know I was laughing
and I was like really proud that we caught the crash on two different camera angles
Oh, yes. so long as it's on film!
I did feel a bit sorry for you.
[laughing]
Some people might be asking how much exercise do you actually get on an E-bike, because it's got a motor, hasn't it?
But you still have to Pedal! You still have to Pedal. There's seven gears, and when the
assist isn't on you have to pedal quite hard because it's a heavy bike. Yeah.
But even when it's on full you still have to pedal to keep it going, don't you? Yes you do, yeah.
But it's up to you how much assist you have on.
I mean, you had it on full all the way. Yes. I had it on... I kinda varied it.
If I needed it on hills, I was kind of testing it. I'm lazy! I got a few more miles than you did
because I... I left him behind. I was just going up and down the road just to see how far I could get.
[laughing]
He got 42 miles out of a charge. I got 49. So, I don't think there's that much difference, is there?
No, not really - with the full assist on. if you go out as a pair you need to just go with the lowest.
It was really cold. I mean it was like bordering on freezing. Sun's going in. It's feeling cold again.
Uh, so I mean... I think the batteries cope better when there's a bit more warmth, don't they? Probably do, yeah.
So we might have got a little bit more out of it. Yeah. By the way, we've put links to the Himiway
Cruiser 2 E-bikes down in the video description, so if you're interested in one there's a link down
there to take you to the website. Yeah, and they are cool. You can have a look!
[sighs]
We definitely need a lie down. I need to go to bed.
A bit of Corned Beef Hash and a nana-nap. And a nana-nap - And a nana-nap.
We hope you've enjoyed your little day out with us. I say little because there's like three hours of daylight at the moment.
[Shaun laughing]
But it is getting better. The sun doesn't rise until nine o'clock.
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My finger's just frozen solid.
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My mouth's freezing up again!
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It's just more rubbish. And all sorts of bits and pieces.
It's not rubbish! You're suppose to be selling it to them!
[laughing]
More rubbish! Hurry up because I'm cold. I wanna go in.
Can we go in? I wanna go in.
We'll see you next time. It's time for a warm bath. Ta raa! Ta raa!
Three, two one... [bird singing loudly]
...and the glen and the lochs [pause] I said it wrong again!
What's the best thing about living in Highland Scotland? That we've done this three times!
He's only just put his phone down and he's forgot it!
Agh! Got to do that again now!
[drone noise and crashing]
[camera hitting a tree branch]
It's like hit off a shovel isn't it? It is. I'm glad you said hit!
Don't tell me to wear gloves if we go out cycling in the winter in the [mumbles words]
Heinie!
Heinie.
I ought to just stick my heinie in front of the screen, didn't I? That'd make 'em all unsubscribe. [laughing]
Iiiiiiiiiice!
God, this is all just too confusing.
I wanna go to bed.
What's that thing called, Whitney Houston did?
'I Wanna Dance With Somebody' . But instead of dance I want to sleep. And 'With Somebody', it's bed.
[laughing]
There's a hairy plane above us! There's midges! We don't get hairy planes. Look, midges. Yeah.
[music to the end]