Ride 058.

Date: 19th October 2005              Distance: 16.25 miles

The Terra Trailblazers have decided to venture further afield twice in one year? A major effort involving calendars, shift cards and spousal sweet-talking saw three of us pushing up a muddy hill in the rain with more than a slight feeling of déjà vu. Only this hill was leading up onto Barden Fell in the Yorkshire Dales, just outside of Grassington, a route found on the internet site Northern Routes and downloaded into the GPS. The No Cycling sign at the start came as a bit of a surprise but we weren’t riding, we had no alternative route and it takes more than a wooden board to put us off.

Before long we were wishing we’d heeded the sign because it was a long way to the top. After catching our breath, some boggy singletrack led to a couple of bleakly situated buildings, then better riding on gravelled tracks took us to Upper Barden reservoir before another ascent to Embsay moor brought us to one the Yorkshire Dales best and most recent innovations; simply a resurfaced bridleway. All the boggy, claggy bits covered over with a firmly packed surface, engineered to give a fast ride over what would previously have been tedious slog. Splendid.

Emerging by Rylstone Fell, we headed swiftly downhill on sweeping track to meet the road at Cracoe. Crossing over, we pedalled up a horrible muddy slope and across an equally boggy Linton Moor, pausing only to rinse mud off in a handy stream, prior to enjoying some more of the marvellous resurfaced bridleway for a pedal to Linton village before a short tarmac spurt brought us back to Threshfield and our accommodation.

After hosing down the bikes we got ourselves cleaned up and out for the main purpose of the trip - Black Sheep Ale, not quite as good as Jennings but passable nonetheless.

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