High Cup Nick

Basking In The Balmy March Weather.

Just a perfectly pleasant blast around Guisborough Woods today, starting from Great Ayton. The sun is out, the sky is blue, the trails are dry - mainly. Everything seems so much easier, the climbs don’t drag, the descents flow. Bumped into Guisborough Woods trail building legend Ralph, as always accompanied by Max Saluki, he celebrated his 80th birthday two days ago - I hope I am as fit as him when I’m that age.

Imagine Having To Work On A Day Like Today...

Continuing with yesterday’s weather, today was a Clay Bank start with conditions so perfect they could have been ordered from a catalogue of utopian dreams. Up the steps, across Urra Moor, down the Old Coal Road, down Turkey Nab, all superb, dry and dusty. Finished with the usual fire road drag through the plantation and half a mile of steep tarmac back to the car park.

High Cup Nick

Something a bit different today, I met The Breadlad in the North Pennine village of Dufton, so we could tackle High Cup Nick, a picturesque glaciated valley in the fells to the North east of Appleby. A road warm up took us to Murton, where we began ascending on a wide gravelled track, which is part of the Pennine Way. The initial section of the climb is named Sweety Briggs on the Os map, which used to amuse The Pensioner greatly, his surname being Briggs. Like the man himself, there was nothing sweet about the climb. which was unrelenting, exactly the type of thing electric bikes are made for - shame we are analog bike dinosaurs, we just sucked up the pain and slogged onward and upward. Eventually the track turned onto a spongy grass moor, which was slightly damp but looked as though it would be a complete nightmare in wet conditions. Luckily we are still enjoying the early pre-summer conditions - or possibly this is the summer? The track drops down to cross a stream before rising steeply up to a plateau and suddenly we were riding above High Cup Nick, looking down into the valley many feet below. The valley terminates abruptly with a steep headwall covered in scrappy cliffs and rock pinnacles of dubious stability. We took a breather on top of the cliff, taking in the awesome view and posing for obligatory pictures before the descent to Dufton. As we were packing up, a cold mist came flowing up the valley, introducing us to a peculiar wetness from the sky. We worked out it was something called rain, we don’t seem to have seen that for months. There is a small climb/push/carry over rocks to begin the descent path but once it is gained it doesn’t disappoint, never overly-technical but a few rocky sections to keep things interesting. A superb three or four miles descending, marred only by the rain, which was more of a light drizzle to be honest. Naturally by the time we reached the car park, it had blown over. Even though we had ridden less than a dozen miles and a smidgen under 2,000 feet of ascent, it was a grand day out, with stunning scenery and a feeling of remoteness, despite never being more than five miles from the A66.

Bare Knees And Summer Tops.

Another perfect day, me and Simon T. taking advantage of the dry trails in Guisborough Woods again. Judging by the amount of cars parked on the Hutton Village road, we weren’t the only ones. We made our way, gradually to Highcliffe, descending back to Hutton Village before girding our loins and climbing back up again for a second blast down through the trees on some different trails. Only Dark Knight disappointed us, it is still a morass of mud and puddles, while everything else is baked hard. A grand way to finish a grand week, I’m glad we made the most of it, sleet is forecast for next week.