Mountain Bike Ride.
The Ginger One
On what must be the best day of the year so far, blue sky, light wind, dryness all around, only The Ginger One was able to drag himself away from whatever pleasures detain all the part-time, fair-weather bikers and swing a leg over a cross bar for another few hours out in the fresh air. All these other shift workers must have a strong belief in reincarnation - they’ll probably come back as ramblers or worse, green-laners.
A well used route from Danby, nothing too arduous, apart from the initial ascent of Ainthorpe Rigg, it was dry enough today for a dab-free conquest, (well, for one of us anyway), the usual steep muddy section was just passable. Descending the Crossley Side, fun as always, slabby rocks at the the top relent to singletrack which turns into a broad, grassy finish on the road to Fryupdale. Emerging unscathed from the descent,we paused to admire a proud upstanding cock - and some geese - at the farm before a few miles of scenic tarmac took us speedily to Houlsyke, where we began climbing again. Initially on the minor minor road which runs parallel to the road in the bottom of the valley before we returned to offroad with an attempt at ascending Oakley Side, the steep and rocky downhill we often utilise to finish rides. It is an equally steep and rocky uphill, the muddy vehicle tracks were of no benefit, in fact it was not too long before we were reduced to pedestrianism for a while such was the lack of traction. A pleasant stroll later, we were back on the road heading for the Clitherbeck’s bridleway, which we crossed against the wind. After Storm Henry which gifted us with its presence over the past two days, this barely merited the title wind.
From Clitherbecks we followed the road to Robin Hood’s Butts, the moors track which becomes more like a Venetian canal with every rainstorm, although I can not imagine Venetian waterways ever having a fringe of ice. The Sis Cross track was our next objective, significantly drier than last time we ventured along, in parts the singletrack as good as a track anywhere in the world, carving sinuously through the heather, occasionally terminating in a boggy hags, which were negotiated with varying degrees of success, before reverting to singletrack, The challenge for 2016 is a no-dabs traverse of this track.
The continuation appears to pass through someone’s garden, marked by posts, before a damp field leads to a stream crossing which is still too deep to blast through and power up the other side. Rounding the corner at the top, we startled a pair of deer which took themselves off onto the moor and watched us watching them. Another brief, uphill turned to a grassy downhill which led us to the Danby Park bridleway, where the geographically-challenged Ginger One suddenly realised where he was and more importantly, the proximity of the Stonehouse Bakery.
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