Mountain Bike Ride
The Pensioner. The Fireman.
Ten days after doing these two loops, I revisited them with more companions but less rain. The Blue being so enjoyable, The Pensioner and The Fireman were dragged along to sample its delights’. After the initial section, which is most like a conventional trail centre, we passed Dialstone Farm and left the official blue route for a while, heading directly to The Escarpment, rather than meandering through some fields to rejoin The Escarpment further on. Some racehorses were being exercised on the gallops adjacent to the track from Dialstone, riders stood in the stirrups, atop massive beasts, thundering along, except for one, which brought up the rear at a more leisurely pace; this one was immediately christened The Pensioner.
We followed The Escarpment to High Barn, the track now predominantly dry and rolling well, dropping down into the quarry from High Barn is, without a doubt, the highlight of the route. So good we did it twice, the second time for the camera. The continuation, through fields is still enjoyable, on open singletrack, descending to the bottom of the woods at Holme Hole, unfortunately the point where the route re-ascends to The Escarpment, starting with a test piece rocky step up in the woods, which The Fireman cruised, before turning to a long fireroad drag. Would you believe one of The Pensioner’s least favourite bits of track on the whole North York Moors? Fire road continues until the first zig of the zig zags which has a short steep bit but regardless of curmudgeonly comments from the back, it’s a fairly painless way of gaining a lot of height. Before too long, were retracing our tyre tracks back along The Escarpment and joining The Cliff Trail which runs alongside the footpath over the top of Whitestonecliffe, passing a yellow bike frame hanging from a tree as a reminder of North Yorkshire’s part in 2014’s Tour De France.
After a short pause to get our breath back we took ourselves down the Green route, essentially the start and finish of the route we had just done. Worth doing again though, if only to get our mileage total into double figures. Then a couple of laps of the skills loop before the main event of the day - the cafe. According to Strava, that slightly dubious repository of cycling records, the fastest time for the skills loop is 16 seconds - or about 4 times faster than we could manage, kind of puts it into perspective.
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