Author: Jon Hurdle

Jon is an experienced journalist who has has written two travel guidebooks to the European Alps and covered a wide range of general and business-news stories for national and local media in the U.S. and his native U.K. He spent several years covering the early stages of Pennsylvania’s natural gas fracking boom and was one of the first national reporters to write about the effects of gas development on rural communities. Since 2011, he has been a freelance writer, contributing Philadelphia-area news to The New York Times; covering economics for Market News, and writing stories on the environment and other subjects for a number of local outlets including StateImpact. Outside of work hours, Jon can be found running, cycling, birding, cooking, and, when weather permits, gardening in the back yard of a Philadelphia row home where he lives with his partner, Kate.

Ride Your Age

Posted on October 31, 2019January 31, 2021 by Jon Hurdle

Discovering northeastern Scotland’s moors, glens and tearooms

When we turned 60, my friend Frank Roach and I started a tradition we call the “Birthday Ride” in which we ride our bicycles the same number of miles as we are years old, on or around the time of our birthdays. The rides also celebrate the fact that we have been friends since the age of five.

This year the target was 62 miles and we chose a route in the county of Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands, starting and ending in the village of Rogart, where Frank and his wife Kate live next to the rail tracks in the historic Rogart Station buildings. The convenient location made it easy for Kate, who is also an avid cyclist, to pedal with us this year.

Difficulty: Moderate

Ride Type: Loop

Surface: Paved

★★★★☆

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