Mud-free And Almost Flat.

Mountain Bike Ride

The Pensioner, The Ginger One

27th February Route - click here

As plans go it was not a bad one, the almost flat was something of an exaggeration, if not a downright lie, those mendacious metres just kept coming but the mud-free bit was supposed to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. North Yorkshire made a liar out of me. That could almost be the title of a Country and Western song.

The idea was to slog up The Mad Mile from Square Corner, pedal along The Drove Road, drop down to enter Boltby Woods at Windygill Ridge and pick up the resurfaced track across Cowesby Moor down to Brickshed Cottage which is a section of the new Red Route from Sutton Bank. The Mad Mile is as gruelling as ever but now entirely rideable thanks(?) to the sanitisation of the trail, it was much more fun to ride down when the rocky slabs were still present. The Drove Road bore the odd puddle and muddy stretch, it was only when we turned off and headed towards Boltby Forest that things became a bit sketchy and a lot less fun than they ought to have been. The Pensioner doing a Superman into the heather at one point would have been the highlight of the ride - if we had actually saw him do it. All the way to Brickshed Cottage the trail teased us with flashes of dry, compacted earth, seducing us along, only to turn to squelch. The final section which goes steeply down to join the road at Brickshed Cottage had no saving graces, pure filth from top to bottom, deep mud interspersed with rocks, like badly cooked dhal, passengers on our bikes we dabbed and slithered and jolted our way down to the sanctuary of tarmac.

Following the road towards Boltby village, the next section of Red Route was eschewed, “because it’ll be too muddy” and we followed tarmac pausing outside Boltby to gaze in awe at Sneck Yate (or Boltby) Bank, that vertical strip of carriageway some idiots have been know to ride up - or attempt to ride up, in my case. Rejoining the Red Route at Town Pasture Wood, the fire road ascent gained height without too much suffering, apart from The Pensioner who “hated every minute of the whole ride” from the minute we turned off the Drove Road and he guessed the gist of the route. The Ginger One, on the other hand, had little idea of anything other than he was pedalling a bike somewhere in North Yorkshire and there was a lot of uphill and a fair bit of mud. His trail knowledge being somewhat limited by a complete lack of observation or retention over the past 15 years of  riding on the moors. The zig zag up to The Escarpment was also unrideable in parts because of the mud, this Red Route is not standing up too well considering it has been open less than twelve months.

Once on The Escarpment it was plain sailing all the way back to Square Corner although everyone was beginning to flag owing to it being the third or fourth consecutive day of riding for us all. And we were still going uphill, albeit gradually, all the way to the top of The Mad Mile. Where we paused for breath, lowered seats, switched suspension into descent mode and got some payback for 3 hours earlier when we had dragged our aching bodies against gravity - and against nature according to The Pensioner, although he may have versed the sentiment in more profane terms.

All that remained was a twenty minute wait in the freezing car park while two idiots washed their bikes when we could have been in the cafe. Which turned out to be closed when we eventually got there.