Best Ever End To October?

 

Superb At Silton

Things are definitely looking up for the second half of October, weatherwise anyway. Today’s ride was nothing but a cruise in the sunshine, on familiar tracks and trails but none the worse for that. Swainby, Sheepwash, High Lane, Square Corner, a few trails in Silton Woods and a return to Swainby via some trails in the woods above Codbeck Reservoir. But what a splendid day for it, short sleeves in October, superb. Nothing more to say really, so let’s move on. 

Wallies On Walla

Me and The Breadlad having a sleepover? In a caravan? At the Lakes? With no grown ups to supervise us? What could possibly go wrong? Well, it is the Lakes, so the weather could go wrong, horrendously so usually from past experience and rain braying off the caravan roof all night long didn’t bode well. The following morning dawned bright, if not exactly cloudless. A brief discussion last night came up with a route traversing both sides of the Borrowdale valley, above Derwentwater, which is how we came to find ourselves dragging bikes onto the rocky top of Walla Crag after a steady warm up riding in from Threlkeld. Anything not made of stone was soggy but the view from the top more than compensated for the occasional squelchy patch. The descent from Walla to Ashness Bridge is just rocky enough to make you have a think but not to the stage where a tumble will probably win a free helicopter ride. The water flowing beneath Ashness Bridge was voluminous and voluble, testament to last night’s rain. We made like tourists for a short while before resuming our journey, the plan being to cross to the other side of the valley and return on the Catbells Bridleway. Part of our route turned out to be submerged, a few hardy walkers had resorted to bare feet to splodge through, complaining about the coldness of the water. It was time to show them what a couple of mountain bikers were made of. It turns out one of us was made of icing sugar and tissue paper, The Breadlad, who didn’t want to get his feet wet, bless him,  opted for a meandering detour, even after being shown the optimum line through the water by a pensioner. Owing to a couple of misunderstandings and some less than perfect route finding, we became separated after the flooded section. One of us took the correct path to the road, The Breadlad stayed low on the lake side. After several phone calls we reconnected on the road, too far along to bother with the Catbells Bridleway, so we continued to Portinscale on tarmac, made our way to Keswick, picking up the Keswick to Threlkeld railway path for a steady 3 miles back to Threlkeld. Enjoying every moment of the scenic river crossings and late afternoon sunshine.

Wallies At Whinlatter

Another night of rain lashing the tin box was followed, once again by a day of exemplary weather. We were to join the trail centre hordes for a day of man-made fun, enjoying facile route finding on signposted trails and the predictability of pistes carefully graded by health and safety officers. It must be said though, Whinlatter is my favourite English trail centre, with awesome views and speedy trails and it has been over two years since my tyres graced the place. As usual we warmed up on the Blue route before continuing on the north loop of the Red route. Some areas of trees have been felled since our last visit, opening up some of the trails and The Long Drag has not been replaced by an escalator or cable car, in fact, it seems to have gotten longer. Everything else is pretty much the same as it ever was. The finish of the north loop is spectacular, a set of huge switchbacks which traverse open fellside before zagging back into forest and back out into the open. Only the south loop remained for us to polish off, it has a black graded section and a red graded section, the red is pure flow, a journey of smile-inducing pleasure which validates every penny spent on mountain biking. And then it was over, all the routes finished and our little holiday too.

Crazy Weather - like a summer's day.

It's half term and that can only mean one thing, SuperBri is released back into the community, along with millions of other teachers, clogging up our parking spots and wandering about trails, giddy from their renewed acquaintance with sunshine and fresh air. We began the half term with a gentle ride from Scaling Dam, in fact The Slagbag, is the only trauma of the whole route; an always brutal ascent on grass and gravel, starting after crossing a beck on foot, so no chance of momentum to aid the ascent. The rest of the ride is almost flat in comparison. The weather remains pristine, blue sky, sunshine, light wind, I can hear the words of The Pensioner filtering through my consciousness, forever pessimistic,  the yang was always going to be worse than the yin.

“This can’t happen in October.”

“We’ll pay for it later I’m telling you, it’ll be a shit winter.”

“We won’t get away with this, there’ll be months of suffering to pay for this.”

We took the chance and had a grand ride, nothing out of the ordinary but it was marvellous, had a brief rest at Danby Beacon before finishing off with a blast across Roxby Moor, a Terra Trailblazer’s favourite. Back at Scaling Dam, we basked like lizards in the sunshine as our tailgate picnic disappeared down our throats.

Another Day Of Autumn Perfection.

A bit cloudy today but our Indian Summer still continues and me and SuperBri are hitting the trails again, this time for a scrounge about Guisborough Woods from Great Ayton. It has been a while since SuperBri ventured over this way, there are large gaps in the trees compared to his last visit. For me it was a standard ride around the woods but things feel fresher when you can introduce someone to a bit of trail they haven’t ridden before. Eventually we ended up on top of Highcliffe Nab, looking down on the house of our occasional companion, Miles, no doubt aiding the British economy by actually working for a living, unlike the people on top of the cliff - a retiree and a teacher. Although I suppose you could class teaching as a part-time job. The simple pleasure of a blast down Codhill Heights brought a grin to our faces, we continued around the Lonsdale Bowl and Fingerbender Bank (another nemesis of The Pensioner, the name is self-explanatory). The bracken has died off enough to make Andy’s Track feasible again, more or less, parts are still like riding through a tunnel of vegetation, it has just changed from green to golden brown. The car park at Gribdale was busy with vehicles, probably more teachers. We had a choice between one more hill, up to Captain Cook’s Monument or directly down the road to the butcher’s in Great Ayton. An obelisk erected to the memory of a long dead mariner was no competition for a cornucopia of pastry-wrapped animal flesh, particularly as the butcher’s shop has the advantage of not being on top of a hill.

Trick Or Treat

Sometimes, when planning a route, I like to consider the finish and figure out an entertaining way to reach it. Laid in bed this morning the idea of a Coleson Banks descent popped into my mind, it has been a while since this was ridden in the gravity friendly direction. Starting from Ingleby Greenhow, involves a lot of climbing to find ourselves in a position to ride down Coleson Banks, so we girded our respective loins and got on with it. Through the woods from Bank Foot Farm to Clay Bank, is a fair bit of ascent, from Clay Bank to Round Hill on Urra Moor is a lot more. Without the assistance of our advanced mesolimbic systems, it would have been a struggle but we cruised upwards, ever upwards, barely breaking sweat. (Disclaimer: some aspects of the previous sentence may be a fabrication.) Eventually we were on the roof of the North York Moors, Superbri even riding the extra few metres to the trig point marking the highest point on the moors, I remained on the main track with the pretence of taking pictures. We rode along to the Incline Top and took a breather at the cast model of the area in its heyday as a railway transporting ironstone from the mines in Rosedale. The last train was in 1929 but I can remember playing in long gone buildings beside where we were sitting in the 1960’s. Continuing, we picked up the Cleveland Way, following it to the Baysdale road, some welcome downhill fun to make up for our ascent. At the road we turned left and headed down the rough track which leads to a gate at the top of Coleson Banks. The Coleson Banks track is a green lane, or whatever it is they call them nowadays, regularly used by the wobbly-heads in their 4x4’s. It was resurfaced a few years ago, to smooth out deep ruts and it has held up fairly well but ruts are beginning to reappear which made our descent a tad more exciting. The wooded bank opens out to a gully cutting through fields until a final water splash pops us out onto the road in Battersby, the earlier climbing erased from our memories by a thousand feet of descent. A mile or so of tarmac and it’s all over, three rides enjoyed in a week of pristine weather, there’ll be no complaints from this direction.  

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

The First Bit Of October

 

Brown Leaves And Blue Skies

The month began wet, even by North York Moors’ standards but Wednesday's forecast looked promising, so after two days of ‘alternative activity’ i.e. not biking, I ventured out into the wide blue yonder. Well, Guisborough Woods anyway, which is more like the green and brown yonder. Predictably, the majority of trails had suffered from the precipitation, leaving them a greasier mess than that ill-advised, alcohol-induced  2 am parmo. I must have been feeling energetic though because I took a swerve from my return route, humping the bike up the steps onto Newton Moor and squeezing in another couple of miles of moorland delight. All to build up a healthy appetite for one of Fletcher’s Farm Shop’s delectable cheese and onion sausage rolls (if that is not an oxymoron, a sausage roll with no sausage.) It was all in vain - they had none.   

Cold Moor Classic

I thought I had better slip in this classic before it becomes too wet/muddy/slippery/icy* (*delete as appropriate) to contemplate. A straightforward ride from Lordstones to Cold Moor got me to the gate at the bottom of the steps but I turned right and followed a narrow singletrack over the shale tips around the North face of Cold Moor. Bracken still very much in charge on the singletrack, forcing my way through with no sign of the track beneath my front wheel at times, ever conscious of our little bloodsucking friends which seem to regard me as a free buffet, despite covered arms and legs. From Garfitt Gap, on the eastern edge of Cold Moor, a short but steep bridleway heads up onto the broad summit ridge, too steep for a mere mortal like me, so it was bike on shoulders and let the hiking begin. A wide, sandy track runs the length of Cold Moor, dropping down to Chop Gate encompassing a variety of riding terrain. The wide track morphs into an old stream bed, littered with rocks and drop offs, the ideal playground for full suspension fun. This bit ends too soon, I even contemplated pushing back up and doing it again but thoughts are not actions and continuing downwards resumed. A variety of singletracks lead to a pair of gates where the trail becomes more rural, running down a broad gully between fields prior to the final section, a loamy tunnel through trees which pops out on the Raisdale Road in Chop Gate,. A classic only marred by it’s brevity, I had travelled a little over 5 miles from the start, I could have powered (powered is a relative term) up the Raisdale Road and been back at Lordstones with only 8 miles in the legs or alternatively, find another huge hill to climb just for the fun of riding down. Several uphill miles later, I was on the summit of Carlton Bank, taking in the view of Cleveland and North Yorkshire, while questioning my sanity. It was worth it for the descent though. The link below is for a time-lapse version of the Cold Moor descent filmed a couple of years ago.

Classic Descents In The Cleveland Hills. Episode One - The Cold Moor Descent.

Beyond The Mad Mile

What turned out to be my only ride of this week, for various reasons I shan’t bore you with but it was a cracker. I left Swainby and made my way to Codbeck, planning an ascent of the Mad Mile to see if my new, decreased fitness regime still left me with enough stamina to pedal 400 vertical feet in a mile . The answer is yes but it would be fair to say I didn’t exactly glide up it with gears and energy to spare, it has been a long time since my granny saw so much action. Normally I would have a quick nibble of something at the top, turn round and enjoy 400 feet of descent but the exertion must have warped my brain because I kept on pedalling, like a cycling Forrest Gump, heading south on the Drove Road to Boltby Forest, dropping down a bridleway into the forest before climbing back up to rejoin the Drove Road, filing away a whole load of new tracks for future reference. I’m sure the oldest teenager in Teesside, Rod, will already be aware of them but they might pass an hour or so away in the future. Now it was time to reverse my journey, heading back down the Drove Road, gaining my revenge on the Mad Mile with a rapido descent, continuing onto High Lane and the brief but enjoyable drop to the ford at Sheepwash. Another few, predominantly downhill, miles later I was back in Swainby, basking in autumnal sunshine as spent calories were replenished. Please click below for a short video of an earlier descent of the Mad Mile.

The Mad Mile

Better Than The Summer

As days go, I couldn’t have asked for a better one, providing blue sky, sunshine and no wind are your thing, they are undoubtedly mine. I headed for the deep south of our region, Sutton Bank, where rides begin at 1,000 feet above sea level, giving a bit of an advantage in the climbing stakes. Today’s ride was a mix and match using the waymarked trails, which are only the old bridleways we used to ride anyway. Now they have benefited from some gravel and a bit of hardcore and are holding up quite well, irregardless of the dire predictions of The Pensioner at the time, who prophesied they wouldn’t last the winter. Bits of all the routes were mixed up to scrape together a ride, red, blue and green, as always the highlight for me is the drop to the old quarry next to Boltby Scar followed by the continuation, a speedy singletrack contouring the hillside below the escarpment. This section often pops up on repeats of one of those helicopter rescue medical shows, where a mountain biker suffered an unfortunate accident and had to be airlifted to hospital. The singletrack is thin and occasionally lumpy, it is easy to let your speed get a bit too exuberant and before you know it, you’re a source of entertainment for a whole sub-species of humanity for whom adventure means trying a new brand of tea or arguing with strangers on the internet. I reached the end of the track without a free helicopter flight and contemplated my options; through the gate, down a field, then a lengthy climb, mainly on a fire road back to the escarpment or a short but brutal push to High Barns, where I started the segment. No competition really, short but brutal it was and I was on the multi-use singletrack which runs along the edge of the moor, all the way to what is modestly billed as “The Finest View In England” . Not having seen every view in England, I’m in no position to comment but it has got to be in the top ten at least. From here the green family route leads back to the carpark and visitor centre and very pleasant it is too. Back at the car, it was only early, so I went into extra loop mode and had another spin around the new bit in the forest, including a quick turn on the pump track before returning to the finest view in England and a second go along the green route, all with the pleasure of some sunshine to highlight the autumnal greens and russets.

Smoke Cloud Over Guisborough

I was hoping for a continuation of yesterday's marvellous weather but I found myself as disappointed as a Darlington football club supporter on, well, on any Saturday of the season really. Incipient drizzle, a cold wind and an overall sense of greyness to the day. Although a lot of the greyness bore no relation to the weather; the ‘guardians of the countryside’ had also taken advantage of yesterday’s weather to indulge in a spot of heather management, which mainly involves torching tracts of moorland to allow fresh heather growth for young grouse to eat prior to being blasted from the sky by some borderline alcoholics with an expensive weapons fixation. The smoke left Guisborough and Great Ayton beneath a gloomy pall, looking like a Hollywood version of dystopia and smelling like Fortunes smokehouse in Whitby. None of the above was enough to make me think twice about riding my bike and I was soon pedalling up through the farms to Roseberry Common, before shouldering my bike up the steps to Newton Moor, ready for a ride across to Guisborough Woods. A couple of hours’ worth of the usual scrounging about the trails ensued, some are already suffering from weather and overuse, deep ruts and puddles where firm trails used to be. Just imagine if Guisborough had funding like Hamsterley, the potential to be superb is there. My actual route was varied and meandering, many of the older trails appear to be underused and overgrown, which is a shame. Eventually, cold and wet, I called it a day and reversed my outward route back to Great Ayton, a bit of payback from the gravity bank.

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