All alone
9th March 2015 route
Like most people of my generation, my only knowledge of philosophers is gleaned from the Monty Python song. One line stuck in my mind as I drove along the A19, “John Stuart Mill, of his own free will” Of my own free will I was heading south, into a low pressure system which was heading north, widely forecast to bring heavy rain and gale force wind. I could have done a local ride from home and been safely back on the settee before the weather crapped out, or even more wisely, I could never have left the settee. It was not as if I would be letting anyone down because it was to be a Billy No Mates ride. Perhaps I felt a need to up my quota of suffering, maybe I wanted to get reacquainted with my 29er, fresh and raring to go after finally having a new Hope stainless steel BB fitted or was it simply my stubborn man-brain refused to formulate a new plan? Whatever, a quick spin around Sutton Bank blue and green routes and back in the cafe before the rain started, plan A. And it almost worked.
Being alone would be a good time to explore the bridleways and tracks leading from The Escarpment without the usual chorus of moaning and wailing about losing height and having to climb back up and the mud and puddles and slippy roots. All the type of challenges normally encountered winter mountain biking in North Yorkshire, which, apparently, are all my fault anyway. Arriving at the car park, the weather was quite bright, if a bit windy, my quick start was immediately thwarted by a couple of pensioners who were regarding the pay and display ticket machine as though it was some sort of alien being, freshly landed from the outer reaches of the cosmos and existing on a diet of pound coins. After twenty minutes or so of hard staring, they were eventually released from it’s force field and I was able to feed the droid four shiny tokens in return for a scrap of paper which was then almost blown from my grasp.
The first turn of the pedals coincided with the first spot of rain, hmm, one of those days eh? The first section, shared by all three routes, goes through Hambleton Plantation and is a pleasant start, slightly downhill at first and nicely surfaced, plus quite sheltered. Even when it climbs back up to rejoin the road, it’s not too bad. Back in the real world, it was blowing hard but the rain was still meagre. A combination of road and track brings all the routes out at Dialstone Farm, where the Blue and Red trails part company with the Green Cliff Trail. I stayed with the Green trail, the meandering route used by the other two trails, through open fields was not for today, or any day really, being not a patch on the exemplary singletrack along The Escarpment - a definite contender for one of Britain’s best tracks . Where the Green heads left and back to the visitor centre I went straight on to join The Escarpment, riding north with the wind at my back all the way to High Barn, rejoining the Blue route near Boltby Scar. At High Barn, where the Blue route doubles back on itself and drops down through a quarry on nice singletrack, the rain began to up it’s game and it the coat had to be put on. The drop down through the quarry and onwards towards Hesketh Grange is a lovely bit of riding and it’ll be even better when the tracks dry up a bit, typical Blue route standard, flowing quite nicely. Unfortunately unsurfaced, like the majority of the Sutton Bank routes, anyone expecting another Glentress or Hamsterley is going to be sorely disappointed but we rode most of these bridleways long before they were joined up and graded so our expectations are more realistic.
The long climb back to The Escarpment, shared with the Red Route, begins at the end of the this section, it is not too bad, gaining height steadily without too much lung busting or anal breathing. A bonus this ride was the lack of muttering from the back. Of course, once on the top, the return is south, into the full force of the wind and it’s new best mate, rain. A pretty comprehensive drenching ensued as I took the new cliff top track back to the visitor centre.
Reluctant to call it a day after a mere 9 miles, despite the weather, I stoically returned to the Hambleton Plantation start and commenced the Green route, even though I’d already done every part of it in the preceding hour. Sheltered in the woods, I took the opportunity for a bit of selfie filming before retracing my tyre tracks to Dialstone Farm and back along the Cliff Trail. Then I had a couple of laps of the skills loop before retiring to the cafe, much to the bemusement of the few visitors sitting in their cars watching the rain.
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