Mountain Bike Ride
Trainee#2, Rod
Quaking at the thought of the Quaker’s Causeway probably explains why we only were a trio today, was about to write threesome there but the warped imaginations of most of the regular readers made me change to trio. Those of us who spent the extra and lashed out on full-suspension bikes view the causeway as a speedy way of making progress over an exposed and boggy moor; riders of hardtails, however, seem to find it akin to six months in a category A prison as the cellmate and love interest of a sexually ambiguous rapist called Big Bob The Beast Of B Wing. Trainee#2 rides a hardtail but (for the next hour or so at least) is unaware The Quaker’s Causeway exists, despite vague warnings from The Youth on past rides.
First we had to leave Birk Brow car park and share the moor road with traffic for a mile or so before a minor road took us to Moorsholm, the weather is autumnal now, becoming cool with leaf cover making some of the bends greasy. From Moorsholm we passed Freeborough Hill, that strange, conical lump beside the moor road, where, one legend has it, King Arthur and the knights of the round table lay sleeping until England needs them, after Dimmingdale Farm, our route went offroad, crossing the moor to the start of Robin Hood’s Butts, opposite the Shaun The Sheep bus shelter. Robin Hood’s Butts was sprinkled with large and unavoidable puddles but is not yet at the normal Venetian canal standard. The sun had a go at getting out but mainly fought a losing battle against the thick cloud. We pressed on to Danby Beacon, using tarmac, from there dropping down to Oakley Walls on the 4x4 track, multiple ruts, mainly filled with mud and water but the right line choice will give a reasonable ride.
The bridleway to Clitherbeck Farm came and went, damp rocky, although the atypical headwind made it a bit slower than usual, after the farm, we crossed the road and followed the Pannierman’s Causeway, crossing a small beck, which was running deeper than usual, only Rod was brave/foolish enough to attempt riding it. The Pannierman’s Causeway continued sharply uphill then down to Danby Park, where we rode above the railway line until we reached the road on the outskirts of Castleton. A long upward slog on tarmac ensued, the weather, sensing we were at our weakest, decided it was time for a shower, just in case uphill tarmac is not grim enough. Nobody wanted to be the one who capitulated first and put a coat on, so we pressed on to the sanctuary of the Shaun The Sheep bus shelter. And shelter we did, until we convinced ourselves the rain had stopped and the distant clear sky was coming our way, and of course we didn’t need to get our coats out.
A further brief bit of tarmac and we reached the bridleway sign, marking the path to the Quaker’s Causeway. The first section probably engendered a false sense of security in Trainee#2, being standard moorland double-track, slightly damp and a little muddy but not at all like the horror he’d been expecting. Then the paved section begins, narrow and slightly uneven, two of us flicked our rear shocks to a more comfortable position, one of us got an uncomfortable shock in the rear. Gradually Trainee#2 began to lose ground as blokes almost twice his age vanished into the rain - oh yes, the weather gods evidently decided we were enjoying ourselves too much and hit us with a ferocious shower which had us drenched before we could even consider getting coats out. It did not matter, a few minutes later we were swapping wet clothes for dry and tucking into some fine comestibles from the Birk Brow burger van.
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