To avoid unecessary travel, Max and Russell hand over the reins to Mick Kirkman for a northern Big Ride, hunting for trail gold on the North York Moors
This National Park in the North East packs in a veritable treasure trove of irst-rate singletrack trails between epic skies and heather-carpeted moors
If you like a bit of prime moorland singletrack and enjoy your own company, the heathercovered North York Moors will be just be the ticket. The wide open spaces of this northern National Park occupy an upland area far enough away from any big cities to keep numbers down, and there are hundreds of miles of tracks and paths to go at.
This area has to be one of the few places in England where, on as gorgeous an August day as we woke to this morning, you can cover 30km on (mostly) bridleways and see only a couple of people over several hours. The vast moorland forms a big part of the National Park, eventually dropping into the Vale of York to the south and the Cleveland Plain to the west.
The National Park stretches all the way from quaint villages such as Osmotherley, close to Middlesbrough, to the penny arcades at Scarborough and the cold North Sea on the East coast – a distance of almost 40 miles as the crow flies. It’s also almost 30 miles from Staithes, further up the coast, all the way to Ampleforth on the south-western side.
There’s some exceptional mountain biking on the fringes as it tips down onto the agricultural land of North Yorkshire, with secret trails littered all over the woods from Kilburn to Silton and up to Guisborough, and the area also hosts the
AWAY FROM THE FLAT MOORLAND TOP, THE TRACK BECOMES CLEARER AND WRIGGLES ITS WAY THROUGH VEGETATION, BUILDING UP A PROPER HEAD OF STEAM OVER SOME BIG LU MPS, WHICH YOU CAN TURN INTO A HUGE DOUBLE
annual Ard Moors event, widely known for having some of the best enduro tracks in England.
For our Big Ride, however, I’ve rounded up three riders to help me hunt for ribbons of singletrack and take in the open spaces at the park’s heart. While you aren’t getting the full adrenaline fix of berms and steep, unofficial trails here, there’s peace and solitude to be found away from towns and other riders, and some truly stunning, unspoilt countryside to savour.
Lovely heather
Joining me for the day are Andy Wright, from Yorkshire Mountain Biking, and Deborah Goodall, who’ve been riding this area for decades and will act as our guides. Also tagging along is Chris Sutcliffe, a young, keen pinner who’s here to make us look a bit cooler. Our route starts on what has to be one of the longest continually climbing bridleways anywhere in England, Rudland Rigg. This is a great away to open up the lungs and legs, and enjoy the first half hour of riding just taking in the views. The rough-inplaces doubletrack trail grinds uphill from around 230m to 424m above Bloworth Crossing, which is almost 10km away.
Up here, on what looks like endless moorland, it suddenly gets a bit tricky to navigate, to say the least. In late summer, the moor is dense with wiry heather waiting to rip your mech off, and also bracken, which, in places, is shoulder high. The track is nowhere to be seen. Andy hasn’t been here for a couple of years, and it looks like no one else has either. After scratching around and following our GPS, we manage to trace a faint line that becomes increasingly clear approaching an incredible view into Farndale, one of most picturesque and remote valleys in the area.
We’re aiming for the River Dove down in the valley, and have to pick our way down various lumps, bumps and compressions in the earth, with the bridleway itself tricky to follow. This is in part because the area is a big shooting zone and landowners have introduced a confusing variety of tracks and paths to get the marksmen to and from the multitude of pegs (stands) from which they point two barrels skyward.
Away from the flat moorland top, the track does become clearer and wriggles its way through vegetation, building up a proper head of steam over some big lumps, which you can turn into a huge double if you’re young and keen like Chris, or pump through if, like me, you aren’t.
Onwards and upwards
This route is a pretty chunky day out, but the area has endless additions in the adjacent valleys, including Rosedale and Westerdale, if you’re packing a motor and a big enough battery. Andy has been tackling these longer routes since the advent of e-bikes. Once down this stunning hillside, we find ourselves at a shady bend in a beautiful little river. It’s a scene that looks and
IT’ S A BEAUTIFUL RIBBON OF DIRT LACED WITH SMALL STONES, WHICH THREADS THROUGH DENSE VEGETATION AROUND FLOWING TURNS AND WITH ENOUGH LU MPS TO GET YOU HO LL ERIN GA ND GRINNING
feels unchanged for centuries, and it’s a good place to rest in the dappled sunlight at the northernmost end of a valley famous for daffodils in spring.
It’s clear that few flower fans ever make it this far up the valley, though, because there’s little sign of life except for some ancient mine workings, which make a fun little playground as we pass. The trail eventually tips us out onto the first piece of tarmac we’ve seen in ages. It doesn’t last long, though, before we switch back over the valley through more deserted meadows and take on a steep, technical grass-climbing ‘challenge’ to pick our way along a farm track and then a road that winds up and down the west side of Farndale. This gives us a chance to soak in the big views as we roll along to Monket House and take a sharp right (and a nasty climb) back up to Rudland Rigg.
Deborah explains how, as bikes have changed over the years, she’s ridden this climb on everything from a 3x8, 26in-wheeled XC bike to a modern day 1x11 gravel bike. This brokentarmac-and-gravel horror-show is brutal, and has even been voted into the top 100 gravel climbs in England by its new demographic. Thank God I’m on an e-bike! The climb passes several quarries and boasts an epic view across to Rosedale, before topping out at a point we passed hours earlier – one of the most sumptuous bits of singletrack for miles.
Payday and a pint
Pretty much all the height we’ve just gained is about to get spent on a beautiful ribbon of dirt laced with small embedded stones, which threads through dense vegetation around flowing turns and with enough interesting shapes and lumps in the ground to get you properly hollering and grinning. It’s a truly special bit of trail, so we’re a bit peeved that the bracken is so overgrown in the fantastic lower section, where tyres usually thread in and out of a sweet gully and get airborne over multiple rises and edges. Avoid the summer months if you want to experience its maximum speed potential. At almost 3km long, this perfectly-formed hidden gem feels like it goes on forever, although sadly it does eventually end and rejoin the valley road.
A few groans address the prospect of pedalling all the way out and round on tarmac, especially because the promise of a pub lunch at the amazing Blacksmiths Arms in Lastingham is calling to us, and the start point (and our vans) is only a couple of kilometres away as the crow flies. We dutifully ride past a footpath cutting off a big corner and join a bridleway that sneaks back through a beautiful little wood at Yealand Rigg. This then pops out on the road, which leads back to where we started.
The e-bikers (Andy and I) are suitably refreshed, while Debs and Chris need about two litres of water each after a serious effort to get around this loop on such a hot day. All in all, we’ve clocked up just over 30km and seen only a handful of people, with no one at all on the best bits. This route isn’t crammed with easy-to-follow manmade trails, and also has a chunk of long, contemplative pedalling sections, where you’ll soak in the big skies and epic views more than any rambler on foot ever could. Plus, it packs a truly awesome signature descent, with 3km of superior singletrack that warrants repeated shredding. The call of a cold pint is getting impossible to ignore. If only we didn’t have to drive home afterwards…