When was the last time you rode a bike? Do you think you still could? They were the questions we asked ourselves on encountering a cycle hire shop in Cornwall. My answers were ‘30-plus years’ and ‘probably’.

In an effort to discover what our greener friends were rattling on about, my wife and I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go.

We had arrived upon the coast-to-coast cycle trail – a series of redundant tin-mining tramways converted into cycleways.

From a wide range at the hire shop at Cambrose, we selected a bike each. Mine was a rather groovy-looking Land Rover model, Lynne’s a kind of shopping bike. After a brief demonstration and a safety lecture, we were off – well, Lynne was off, I managed to stay on a little longer.

Initially wobbling along a roadside, we must have looked a sight to passing motorists and the more able cycling types on their racy machines, dressed in garishly-coloured lycra, but we soon rediscovered the old balance and, passing into woodland, we felt almost at home in the saddle. Then we got to the gates!

Along the trail there are staggered gates preventing vehicles from entering. That’s a good idea, until you get a little over-confident and, instead of dismounting and pushing through, you try to slalom it, like you used to. That particular bit of balance didn’t return so quickly and it was a few more gates before we finally got the hang of it.

After a pleasant ride, we arrived at Portreath. The last quarter-mile of the trail was on quiet roads through the village, but the presence of any cars within earshot meant Lynne lost her bottle and decided to push. On the seafront, a cafe was beckoning, looking out over the surf-rich Atlantic. That’s when we discovered another downside of cycling – we’d left all our stuff, including cash, back at the hire shop.

We worked our way back to where we’d started and returned our bikes.

So, what’s the verdict on cycling? Bikes have certainly moved on since my heavy old Hercules, and a new lightweight, cross-country-cycle with suspension, easy gears and sharp brakes is almost a pleasure to ride.

Certainly in that wonderful environment, in a holiday frame of mind and with the right weather, it’s a lot of fun, even if you haven’t done it for decades. You quickly rediscover the skills you’d found so natural as a child, although this time with perhaps a little less bravado.

Will I be buying a bike for local use at home? No. Apart from the steep hills here, the probability of matching the right weather with lack of things to carry, and the time to go at bike-pace, seems just a bit too remote.