Sunday 15 November 2009

Danby: Route One

Yesterday we met up with a group of riders from down south who were up here for a long weekend in God's Own Country. Due to time constraints the plan was just to do a short loop from Danby Village, Route 1 from the fine book "North York Moors Mountain Biking: Moorland Trails" by a certain Tony Harker. An added extension made this route slightly longer and threw in an extra fun downhill.

We decided to split into two groups - fast and not so fast - and off we set. I was in the fast group, so I can't comment on anything that happened to the others!

After the previous four weeks of soggy, shit covered rides that we'd done, this week was looking promising. Bright blue skies and very mild temperatures, the weather was way better than the forecast had predicted.

We left Danby and headed west, paralleling the railway all the way to Commondale. This is a lovely bit of trail. While not in any way challenging it gives great views down over the valley with the river and railway running below you the whole way.

A bit of a climb at Commondale and then we're onto the green lane from Three Howes Rigg. Constant use of this lane by 4x4 has left it deeply rutted, and those ruts were full of water, most of them up past our axles. I rode into some of them with real trepidation, wondering if, in fact, the water might come up past the handlebars, not just past the axles!

A quick right-left-right and we're on The Pannierman's Causeway, one of the many stone tracks laid across these moors in centuries gone by. Fun to ride on a full-suss, bouncy as hell on a hardtail, it's not quite as challenging as The George Gap, which seems to have wheel-catchers placed at regular intervals.

Then it's off across the moor to Castleton Pits, a very indistinct section of moorland singletrack that involves a fair bit of heather-bashing in the early stages.

Heather Bashing

This brings us out at the plummet down Oakley Side and today there's no oversized walker blocking the entire trail, so it's heads down and brakes off all the way to the bottom.

We take the road from there, past Danby Castle (never seen that before) and along Fryup Dale, saying goodbye to one of our group on the way. He's suffered SPD failure and has decided to take the short, easy, road way back to Danby. The rest of us push our bikes up the excellent downhill from Danby Rigg. It's a worthwhile effort on two counts. First, we'll get to do the cracking downhill at the other side that we've only ever ridden up and secondly it makes us appreciate the size of the rocks and drop offs we encounter when we usually ride down this way. Personally I was quite surprised that we tackle such stuff with relative ease - it doesn't look nearly as big on the way down!

It Makes A Fine Downhill!

So all that's left is that downhill - fast, narrow and technical, but with generally good run-off areas if you lose it. But do we ever lose it? Another incident-free ride, we're getting pretty good at this not-falling-off malarky.

Downhill From Danby Rigg In Fading Light

Having split into two groups, the second group had further sub-divided into two and yet by an amazing quirk of timing we all arrived back at the same time for tea & scones in The Moors Centre. Lovely.

Danby - Pannierman's Causeway - Fryup Dale:
15.2 Miles, 1854ft Up/Down, 2hrs48mins

Sunday 8 November 2009

Osmotherley: Gloopfest

"Mostly hard track so not too much mud" read the invite to this ride. Great, after the last couple of rides the chance to stay largely mud-free would be very welcome.

We set off from Square Corner and headed off across to Stilton Forest. A nice, but wet, bit of forest singletrack brought us out onto fire roads and the fast drop down to Over Silton. All that loss of height meant just one thing - a tough climb coming up in the shape of my least favourite hill, Kepwick Bank. I don't know what it is about that hill - probably the fact that it levels out at a gate part way up, making you think it's all over when the reality is there's still a fair slog left! The new Trailraker tyres didn't make this climb any easier, but then what do you want? Grip when it gets gloopy or fast rolling on the roads, you can't have it all ways.

With Kepwick Bank out of the way it was obvious there was only one way we could go now - back down. We headed along the Drove Road a short way then cut off right down towards Boltby Forest on a fast, rutted and fairly muddy doubletrack. Thankfully this didn't lose us all our height, I wouldn't fancy another climb like Kepwick Bank so soon after the last one. A little meandering through Boltby Forest and we were back up onto the Drove Road and heading for Noddle End.

A long, uneventful grassy track eventually ends at an almost vertical plummet down a grassy/rocky bank. Some walkers informed us that we couldn't ride it - "it's too steep". Steep wasn't an issue. What was an issue was rain and cows, never a good mix. The bank had been churned into a sodden mess of potholes, ruts, mud and cow shit that made riding difficult on the upper section and impossible on the lower.

Descending At Noddle End

We left Noddle End via our least favorite natural obstacle - a muddy field full of cows with their calves. One of them got a bit frisky and took a shine to Neil, galloping off after him, jumping and high-kicking as it went. I think it was better that Neil hadn't realised what was happening, it would only have paniced him.

This was the lowest point of the ride (in terms of elevation) so now there was 6 1/2 miles of continuous uphill. Some of it steep, some of it gradual, all of it a right slog in the mud and wheel-deep puddles. The promise of a mud-free ride was ringing very hollow. All of the gloop had stripped our chains of lube too, and chain suck was affecting most of us. The shit had even killed Neil's rear mech, reducing him to a three speeder. That drag up the hill from Arden Hall has never seemed so long!

Mud Mud Glorious Mud
The new mud tyres were put to good use

6 miles and an hour's hard slog later we were at the top of The Mad Mile. Thankfully now the only way is down. (Has this suffered some erosion at the top? It was a lot less rocky but a lot more loose than I remembered it). Down we flew, passing a good few of our second-least favourite natural obstacles - walkers. Most of them were good enough to shift out of the way, though some were quite slow to do so. I've never passed so many people as I did here, and it was impossible to let the brakes off and fly down - there would have been a very nasty accident.

So back at the cars and no one had stolen the knee and elbow pads that Neil had left on the boot of his car. This probably says more about the quality of the product than the honesty of the people around ;-)

This ride knackered me more than anything I've done in the last few months, and I was very glad of that. I'd been needing a hard workout and pushing the pace on that 6 mile drag to The Mad Mile was just what my legs and lungs were needing.

Square Corner - Silton - Boltby - Noddle End . 
19 miles; 2475ft of climb; 3hrs46mins.

Probably the muddiest ride since the last time we passed through Kepwick, but fun and a good workout.