Getting Silly At Silton

For the second week in a row I find myself with a companion, singular, gone are the days of threesomes and foursomes, as the pursuit of filthy lucre triumphs over the pursuit of singletrack. Despite the Monday morning sunshine, Square Corner and the surrounding area still shun any attempt at warmth, seemingly the epicentre of North East England’s contrary micro-climate. If we thought last week was cold, this week is striving to go lower in the temperature stakes, struggling to creep into double figures. Rod is off all week, his first break since our trip to Spain and I have a feeling I am going to be beasted all week. Nice easy start to the week though because he did a big ride in the dales yesterday, so special thanks to all at the Dales Bike Centre for tiring him out. We met at Square Corner and pedalled the short distance into Silton Woods, riding a variety of trails from sections of the old downhill track to some of Rod’s favourite projects, trails he is ‘improving’ for the benefit of all and sundry. Providing all and sundry are fans of steep and technical. Plenty of uphill and down dale as they say in Yorkshire. Unbelievably, between trails, we discovered some of the wettest parts of North Yorkshire under our wheels and in some cases, feet; as though all the water on a whole moorside has congregated in one spot. It hasn’t rained for weeks and we have wet feet. A few more trails led us back to Square Corner, where the sun shone brightly, doing its best to warm up a wind straight from the Baltic.

Up Fryupdale And Down Westerdale.

My turn to show Rod around today, on some natural tracks, out on open moorland. We met at Danby, where it didn’t even pretend to be summer, cold, grey and breezy - only the uphill start stopped us donning extra layers, there are four roads out of Danby, they are all uphill. We chose the southerly option, pedalling through Ainthorpe before leaving tarmac behind to ascend Ainthorpe Rigg. At least it warmed us up a bit. Straight down the other side and into Little Fryup Dale, following a bridleway through fields which eventually turned right to ascend Raven Hill, a steep and rocky ascent, which saw even two athletes like us pushing after a while. Rod filed it away in his memory bank of future descents of a steep and rocky nature. From the summit, a few hundred metres of soggy moorland took us to a road, which we followed around Danby Head to the bridleway we know, with stunning unoriginality, as the Westerdale descent because that is where it ends up. Even more prosaically on Strava it is called Danby Head To Westerdale Descent. Nothing too technical, a diagonal track down a hillside, leads to a steeper drop down a grassy bank before the angle eases on some moorland leading to a farm. The bridleway weaves between buildings, through a gate or three then begins to drop again to cross Tower Beck. Flat riding takes us to the road at Broad Gate Farm, where we sit on a patch of grass and take our first snack stop of the ride and enjoy the view, looking back to the descent we have just enjoyed. It looks a lot steeper from a distance. Tarmac leads us around the outskirts of Castleton, under the railway bridge and up a short but steep climb to the entrance of the Danby Park bridleway. Danby Park doesn’t have swings, slides, a boating lake or paedophiles lurking in the bushes, although it does have bushes - and trees, it is merely the name of a small area of woodland above the section of Esk Valley railway between Castleton and Danby. We rode through the woods to open moorland, the usually muddy path across the moor dry and firm today. A last bit of singletrack took us to the road, two sharp ascents later and we were sitting in Danby Bakery surrounded by tempting goodies.

A Trip To Tripsdale

Third day in a row with Rod and we decided to take advantage of the dry spell to enjoy The Fronts, a track which contours the faces of three hills, Cringle Moor, Cold Moor and Hasty Bank. A roller coaster trail between Lordstones and Clay Bank which suffers after prolonged wet conditions (i.e. normal weather) but a superb experience when it dries up. Lesson learnt from yesterday, extra layers on, we set off from Lordstones and enjoyed every second of The Fronts, all the way to Clay Bank. The hike a bike up the Carr Ridge steps was not quite as enjoyable. At the top, the choices are straight on, which is more climbing to Round Hill (highest point on the North York Moors) or left, on a bridleway which runs around the edge of Urra Moor. We call this The RIm which has given rise to any number of puerile jokes in the past - talk about bad taste - but we’re much too refined to indulge nowadays. We chose rimming, the trail is in excellent condition, dry and loamy, fine views down into Bilsdale, it ends at Medd Crag with a choice of up or down. Down goes to Chop gate from where we could climb back to Lordstones, which would mean a short ride or up which gives us numerous options. Feeling uncharacteristically energetic (I was a process operator for 41 years, energy conservation was of supreme importance, ideally feet would only be taken off the table to put the kettle on) I suggested Tripsdale, the closest thing we have to Spanish riding. A long, loose and dusty descent, ending with some wide, sandy hairpin bends to cross a stream in the little visited valley of Tripsdale. The price for a few minutes of exhilaration is fifteen minutes climbing back to the moor - at least it isn’t hot like a proper June. We descended back to Bilsdale on the bridleway through East Bank Plantation which doesn’t appear to have received the dry and dusty directive, if anything it is more boggy than usual. A nice blast down to Chop Gate despite the wet feet. We made our way back to The Fronts via Beak Hills Farm, a steady drag up the valley between Cringle Moor and Cold Moor. It’s only a few days until ‘Ard Moors, the popular MTB enduro event held at Lordstones every year, a few teams are around, marking out sections of track, building ramps and suchlike. We returned to Lordstones on The Fronts, for some proper athlete nutrition, beer and sausage rolls.

Losing My Yearsley Virginity

Somewhere new today, the woods at Yearsley have become popular with mountain bikers over the past few years, Rod has been a few times, so it was time to introduce me to the delights on offer. Even better, we’re miles inland, giving us a break from the cold east wind which has afflicted us for weeks now. Dare I say it was almost like a summer’s day? We were soon shedding layers like a low budget Full Monty, the first time being so under-dressed since we were in Spain. Rod did his best to familiarise me with every trail in the woods, I soon lost my bearings and the whole experience was condensed to up, down, fire road, sunshine and occasional views across to the White Horse at Kilburn or the Eton of the north, Ampleforth College. The trails are mainly dry, 99.9% anyway and riding so well even someone with my degree of ineptitude managed to get down them largely unscathed. Almost all the tracks are off-piste through trees, for the trail centre devotees they would be graded red or blue on the difficulty scale - when they are dry; these are not stone-armoured, all-weather tracks, wet roots and mud will take them to another level of injury potential. Despite the brevity of our route, we did a fair amount of climbing, a two snack ride to keep up the energy levels. Several times the ever-enthusiastic Rod pointed us back toward the car, then suggested “one last trail?” And I was enjoying it so much, I couldn’t help but agree. It was a very late picnic by the time we arrived back at the parking area.