Smoke From A Distant Fire

“Well, I’m going down to Rosedale...” as Cream sang on their version of Robert Johnson’s song, although I don’t imagine their idea of Rosedale was a green North Yorkshire valley, littered with the remains of ironstone mining from a century and a half ago. I parked up at Blakey Bank Top, just as the rain began. Incredibly expensive coat donned, I followed the old railway track for a few hundred yards (or metres) turning off just downwind of the heather burning which was sending a fog of smoke over the surrounding area. I was soon below the smoke, descending the “Aldi Lager Decent” as it is called on Strava, whether it is a typo for descent, or somebody praising Aldi lager we’ll never know. Always a fun descent, today was made more exciting by dubious visibility through rain soaked glasses. At the bottom I went through a gate into a farm yard, the first of eleven gates to negotiate on this route, this next section passes through squelchy fields to pick up the minor road at Thorgill. Riding alongside the most hard core golf course in the world, hacked out of the side of a rough moor. The road emerges in the village of Rosedale Abbey, where the weather took a turn for the better and the incredibly expensive coat went back in the bag. A road climb leads (eventually) to the east side of the old railway, passing a place that can’t be ignored by those with a puerile sense of humour (which is most of the people I know), the place where they breed Audi drivers; Bell End Farm. The rail bed makes its way around the head of the valley in a huge U turn, gaining height on a railway style gradient, around 2%. I followed it until the smoke from the heather, which was still burning merrily, where I was forced to take a detour up onto the road. Which was okay as the little loop behind The Lion Inn is always worth doing. All that remains is another section of disused rail track, a short section of Blakey Bank and I’m done.

Autumn Leaves

Not a lot to report about this ride. Great Ayton start, up to Roseberry Common, Newton Moor, Percy Cross Rigg, Black Nab, back of Highcliffe. Not actually raining for a change but everywhere is suffering a bit of water damage. I set off down The Riddler but the lower reaches are still in the grip of bracken, a likely looking track cut across the trail, so a wander up to find the start seemed like a good idea. It was a decent find, quite long, rooty but never too technical, on Strava it has several incarnations all named around the Lost World theme. Back on fire roads, continuing my scrounge about the forest, avoiding the mud, fallen trees and machinery, I rode another few trails, making my way east before turning and heading west, finishing with a ride along the Bluebells and Garlic track through Newton Woods. A distinct lack of bluebells or garlic today but it is mid-october.

Enough Is Enough

Light rain and drizzle was the uninspiring forecast today, it wasn’t wrong. The incredibly expensive coat was donned and I was off, another Great Ayton start, this time with a long road warm up, hoping conditions would have improved by the time I went off road. They didn’t. I rode through KIldale to Percy Cross crossroads, turning left and ascending Percy Cross Rigg through an all-permeating drizzle. The tarmac ends at a gate, Percy Cross Rigg continues as a sandy, rocky track, up to the WW2 building at the summit before dropping down to the gate at the top of The Unsuitables. Ignoring the Guisborough Woods trails, I stuck to the wide tracks, ending up on Newton Moor, the usual view across to Roseberry Topping non-existent today, hidden behind a shroud of grey cloud. I rode, via Fingerbender Bank, to Gribdale, trousers fully saturated by now, water running down into my 5:10’s, feet sloshing inside the shoes. I could have rode up the hill to Captain Cook’s Monument and had a peruse of the trails around there but as the song says, enough is enough and I bailed out down the road back to Great Ayton. So cold and wet, the butchers was passed over in favour of the chippie and a steaming hot chip butty. Just the thing.

The Show Must Go On.

It transpired today is my 100th ride of this year, which shows what a slack year this has been. Ride 100 is normally the beginning of July. To help me celebrate this milestone, I was joined by The Breadlad, we had both driven through thick fog to reach Danby which was enjoying a spell of undeniably pleasant weather, raising our hopes for a coatless ride. We pootled up the road toward Clitherbeck Farm, to pick up the gravel bridleway cutting across Castleton Pits to the beacon road. More uphill took us to Danby Beacon, which wasn’t sharing Danby’s pleasant weather, views in all directions were a uniform grey and every surface was cold and damp. Some people believe the myth that joints are sore when it is cold and damp but that’s just a mist ache. We didn’t hang around long enough to find out, heading downhill to the Roxby Moor track, dropping out of the mist, we enjoyed the newly gravelled double track. At Scaling Reservoir, an unwelcome visitor swept in and our hopes of a coatless ride were no more. Further on, the crossing of Hardale Beck, at the bottom of The Slagbag was a bit of an adventure, the usually shallow stream was flowing deep and rapid, we had to wander upstream and downstream for a while before finding a crossing point which would not involve paddling knee-deep in freezing water. We took the Oakley Walls road back towards Danby, turning off to ride down the stoney track, which has suffered some water damage, making it a bit more fun to ride. Continuing downhill, we rode over Duck Bridge and continued to Danby, where it was so warm and sunny we were happy to sit outside the cafe to replenish our calories.

Clicking on the route names will take you to the Strava page for the route. Where you can marvel at how slow we are.

 

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

The start of another week and I am at Scaling Dam again, exactly two weeks since I was comprehensively saturated in the same area. Hopefully there won’t be rain of that magnitude again. In fact things looked quite promising in the weather department, as I rode along the dam, Scaling reservoir flat calm in the sunlight of an autumn morning, framed by russet shades of dying bracken and leaf-shedding trees. I rode further inland, passing through High Tranmire farmyard until The Slagbag reared its ugly head, the lower end guarded by an ever expanding Hardale Beck, a few minutes of puffing and panting later and I’m riding across  flat moor before dropping down to Green Houses, a tiny enclave of with two or three houses in a green valley. From here, tarmac to Lealholm RIgg, where I turn off onto the stoney track, following it a short distance before heading down to the Oakley Walls road. I could have rode Lealholm Rigg all the way up to Danby Beacon but that would have meant a very short ride. A steady plod along Oakley Walls brought me to the Clitherbeck bridleway, Watersplash singletrack as it known on Strava, the water splashes are very much in evidence today, this was the point a fortnight ago where the drenching started, thankfully there was none of that behaviour today. The dry conditions have given the estate workers a chance to torch a bit of heather, setting fire to thick, old growth so that next spring, new shoots can be easily accessed by young grouse. Unfortunately I was downwind of this particular piece of land management, even though it was a couple of miles away, the air was hazy with smoke and I soon smelt like a kipper. I made my way up the Pannierman’s Causeway, some of the recent soft patches are now hub-deep, wheel sucking mud, I found out the hard way, a patch which was rideable a fortnight ago detained my bike and gave it a cavity search. A mile or so of tarmac took me from the Pannierman’s Causeway to Danby Beacon, followed by the superlative bridleway over Roxby Moor. It has been recently treated to a fresh coating of gravel, which slows things down a bit but hopefully, will improve the riding during the claggy months. A fine finish to any ride. I was soon back at Scaling Dam, bike on the roof rack and up the road to the burger van at Birk Brow for some proper cyclists’ nutrition. 

Grease Is The Word

And here I am back in Great Ayton, parked up by the river, a sure sign either there is a dodgy forecast or I can’t think of anywhere better to go. It was the latter today. Rode up to Gribdale, for a change, continuing past the car park, through Oak Tree Farm and up the Nab End track, Nab End is all rideable since it was resurfaced a couple of years ago - more’s the pity because it is a tough climb but was an “interesting” descent of rocks and roots, deep gullies and narrow ridges. I kept an eye out for interesting fungi to stop and photograph as I panted upward, the significant word here being stop; unfortunately none of the usual crop of bright red, picturesque, photo-competition winning, fly agarics were interested in modelling today and I had no excuse to stop until the gate at the top. From here, a quick blast along Percy Cross Rigg and down to Sleddale before I was climbing again, on the more amenable track up Codhill Heights, which culminates at a handy seat behind Highcliffe Nab. After a quick snack, I made my way to the base of the cliffs which form Highcliffe Nab and launched myself down one of the trails which run to the fireroad, Magic Mushroom, I think. It was not the pleasant, flowing downhill track of summer months, more a coalescence of mud and wet roots, often hidden beneath a rug of equally slippery leaves. Suffice to say it was not my best performance. I made my way through the forest on equally mediocre trails until I found myself on a trail called FloRida, which runs through a heavily wooded (for now) section of forest and was in remarkably good condition compared to everywhere else. The area of the forest at the western edge, nearest Roseberry Topping is in the early stages of being felled, some access tracks have been bulldozed through the trees, it looks as though all the trails in the Homage To The Loamage area will soon be memories. I got a few in while I still can before riding up the hill to Roseberry Common. I could have rode directly downhill, through Aireyholme Farm and back to Great Ayton from here but my mileage for today had only just scraped into double figures, so I shouldered the bike and hiked up the steps onto Newton Moor, riding across the moor so I could enjoy the delights of Fingerbender Bank (named after one of The Pensioner’s unfortunate accidents) followed by the rocky descent to Gribdale. From Gribdale, I retraced my tyre tracks to Great Ayton. 

Happy Birthday

Windscreen wipers slapping time (showing my age there) all the way to the start, this was definitely what we used to call a “Who Dares Wins” ride. In the face of an appalling forecast, 80% chance of rain, me and The Breadlad met up in Great Ayton (yes, again), mainly because neither of us wanted to be the first to back down. Amazingly, the rain stopped as we parked up and didn’t trouble us for the remainder of the day. More amazingly, The Breadlad was early, that’s two rides in a row, I swear he’s sleeping in his car in a layby somewhere. Not quite trusting our luck with the weather, we had a road warm up, pedalling to KIldale before leaving tarmac behind at New Row and heading up the Yellow Brick Road to Percy Cross Rigg. At a gate, tarmac stops and off-road fun begins, climbing up to the World War 2 building, then dropping to the gate at the top of The Unsuitables, one of the entrances to Guisborough Forest. The remainder of the ride was more or less similar to the previous one, FloRida and Homage To The Loamage amongst others, all suffering after the early morning rain. By the time we had made our way onto Roseberry Common, the cloud had dissipated like The Ginger One’s interest in mountain biking and we were basking under sunshine and blue sky. Well, basking in our smugness at not bailing on the ride. And the happy birthday? It turns out it is one year today since my Whyte was first introduced to the delights of North Yorkshire, coincidently riding from Great Ayton on that day too. Our return route took us through Fletcher’s Farm, so we took advantage of the farm shop for scones and hot drinks, sitting at tables in a barn rather than mingle with the clean people in the main cafe. How do people manage to go into the countryside and stay clean? In one of his more philosophical moments, The Breadlad summed it up perfectly, we were in a cafe somewhere, muddy, sweaty and filled with post-ride endorphins, looking at the clean people surrounding us.

“We got out and do something, then go to the cafe. For these people going to the cafe is doing something. That’s no way to live a life.” 

Clicking on the route names will take you to the Strava page for the route. Where you can marvel at how slow we are.