Swaledale, Yorkshire Dales

Distance 44.6km (27.7 miles) Climbing 1,375m (4,511ft) Time 3hrs 30mins to 6hrs

Route summary: This is a big ride out into the stunning Yorkshire Dales, although it can easily be made shorter if needs be. It features a bit of everything, including some superb technical trails and stunning views.

Start/finish: Dales Bike Centre (postcode DL11 6AW, grid ref SE 046/988)

1

Turn left out of the centre, go around the left-hand bend and then turn right, signed ‘High Fremington’. Head left at the T-junction, uphill, on what becomes a rough track through a gate. Follow this to the houses at Hurst and turn left. Continue through a gate to the top. Keep ahead/left to and through a gate/wall. Ride downhill through a quarry.

2

Go right at the bottom by Storthwaite Hall, to Langthwaite. Head left over the bridge and left on the main road. Cross a cattle grid and take the stone track after the bridleway on the right. Keep right at the fork, uphill to a road.

3

Head left on the road, cross a ford and then go right on a track, uphill, to Great Pinseat. Keep left, downhill, and turn right over Level House Bridge, by the ruin. Follow this main track to the top. By a cairn, turn left off it, to a larger cairn. Follow a steep, technical gully downhill.

4

Go left along Gunnerside Gill, keeping left, uphill. Continue ahead on the bridleway by the road on the right. Go left just before Barf End gate on a faint bridleway through a gate/wall. Follow this to another wall and go right. Pass through another gate and turn left, downhill, to Gunnerside.

5

Join the tarmac and go left, through an electric gate. Turn right to the B6270, go over the bridge, then left and immediately left again, onto a byway, which becomes tarmac. Follow this to the road. Go left here, then left over the bridge and right on the B-road to Feetham.

6

Head left on the road, past the Punch Bowl Inn, steeply uphill. Continue down, over the river, then back uphill. Ford the river (again) and turn right onto the bridleway you were on earlier, then immediately bear right onto some singletrack.

7

Keep ahead, downhill, past a house, across some grass and through a gate into a wood. Keep left on a lane to the main road. Go right on this, then turn left over the bridge. Head left on the far side, then left on a bridleway.

8

Follow this track parallel to the river, keeping ahead to a road. Follow this left to Grinton and left again, over the bridge, back to the Dales Bike Centre.

LOCATION DETAILS:

The Yorkshire Dales countryside is big and open, with large, rolling green hills divided down into smaller fields with miles of drystone walls. Above the wall line, the moorland tops are barren but never dull, with deep gorges and technical rocky trails that generally drain well (so well that the valley floors often flood).

GETTING THERE:

Inland from the North York Moors, exit the A1 to go through Richmond and join the B6270 down the Swaledale Valley. The Dales Bike Centre is just past Grinton, over the bridge and on your left.

ACCOMMODATION/FACILITIES:

Dales Bike Centre has everything you need, with bike-friendly accommodation for all budgets, a wonderful cafe, bike shop, bike wash, bike hire and amazing staff (01748 884908, www.dalesbikecentre.co.uk). There’s a pub on the route in Langthwaite early on, as well as in Gunnerside and Feetham later in the ride. Grinton and Reeth also have pubs, for the evening.

MAPS & BOOKS:

Ordnance Survey Landranger 92: Barnard Castle & Richmond. Mountain Biking in the Yorkshire Dales by Ian Boydon (Cicerone Press).