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Couple spent five summers bicycling across Canada Riding a bike offered me my first taste of indepen- dence. I could range further, get there faster, and travel wherever I wanted to go. But then “sixteen” and bike-riding became suddenly and decidedly un- cool... .bike, what bike? One of the silent casualties of replacing cycling with driving was the exercise it had provided. As a kid, I can’t say I ever thought of riding my bike as “exercise,” and certainly never sought it out for expressly that purpose. You did what had to be done to reach and return your destination, and a little fatigue represented the cost of doing business. Freedom and exercise. By Scott Mercer Those same elements, which provided the framework of most people's childhood bicycling experience, draw some back to it as adults. Port Perry’s Bob Almack and Liz Henderson understand. Both retired teachers, the couple share a love of cycling well beyond their teenage years. Five years ago, Liz proposed a lofty goal. “She was working in northern British Colum- bia,” Bob recalls. “And said: ‘Come join me. We'll start here and cycle across the country.” Liz envisioned their odyssey as self-supported. Forty pound packs, secured to each bike, would contain all the necessities for camping, cookin; repairs, first aid, and an extended life on the open road. Bob jumped at the chance. “I grew up ona farm, where you had to be physical and that made you fit. It wasn’t necessar- ily ‘athletic,’ it was just the way it was. Later on, in my 20's, when I was teaching in Toronto, I cycled to work.” Fortunately, he found a life-partner in Liz who Please turn to page 34 Bob takes a break on an old rail line converted into a bike trail, which stretches from Meaford to Collingwood, Ont. FOCUS - MAY 2015 33