Cycling in Yorkshire & Beyond
Cycling in Yorkshire & Beyond
This book of Mountain Bike Rides in the Yorkshire Dales has twelve off-road rides, with routes in every area of the National Park.
There's a navigation page on Hedgehog Cycling for each ride, with maps which you can zoom in and out, and GPS files to upload to a device.
The book is packed with colour photos. There's information about the landscapes, towns and villages you pass through, the people who have shaped them, and the wildlife that thrives there.
Mountain Bike Rides in and Around York is available in paperback. These are the options:
Mountain Bike Rides in the Yorkshire Dales has twelve rides in total.
The off-road rides explore the whole National Park, including the 2016 expansion into Cumbria.
Each ride is given a flapjack rating - how many flapjacks you need to keep your energy levels up. The ratings are from one flapjack (very easy) to five flapjacks (very difficult).
The rides are divided into four areas:
The Swaledale & Arkengarthdale rides start with the classic Swale Trail.
The other two rides make use of the excellent lead mining tracks in this area, in Apedale and up on the moors above Arkengarthdale.
These rides are in the south and west Dales. Start points include Gargrave, Settle, Clapham, Helwith Bridge, Horton-in-Ribblesdale and Ingleton.
Malham Tarn is on one of the routes, and another passes close to the Norber Erratics.
Some of the rides are in Three Peaks country and tour Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent. Fleet Moss is the high-point of another ride.
Kestrels are among the birds of prey you might see on your rides.
The two rides in this popular part of the Yorkshire Dales start in Grassington and Bainbrige.
The Grassington-based ride climbs Mastiles Lane; the Bainbridge one visits the charming Semer Water.
There's just one ride in the Howgill Fells - the Bowderdale Classic.
'Not for the faint-hearted' sums up this ride quite well, but it's an enjoyable challenge, and even the faint-hearted will relish lunch at the King's Head or a pint at the Black Bull in Sedbergh at the end.
Each chapter begins with a Trip Overview, featuring distance, flapjack rating (difficulty), duration, hills and stops.
There's an overview map of each ride in the book, plus a link to more resources on this website which include:
There are feature boxes for each ride.
Blue boxes contain information about people and places or points of interest along the route. Examples include Lead Mining in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, the Settle to Carlisle Railway, the Ribblehead Viaduct, and Mastiles Lane Roman Camp.
Green boxes are for natural features and wildlife - for example Victoria Cave, Malham Tarn, the Yorkshire Three Peaks, the Norber Erratics, Grass Wood, Semer Water, and the Howgill Fells.
The book is packed with colour images, to give a flavour of the countryside you ride through and - I hope - motivate you to get out and explore it.
The Yorkshire depicted in the book is sunny more often than it is in real life.
Total page count: 164 pages.
Sample content is available on Amazon via Look Inside.
Here's a list of the rides in Mountain Bike Rides in the Yorkshire Dales.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was going to name his fictional detective Sherrinford Holmes, but changed his mind at the last moment.
The author's mother lived at Masongill near Ingleton, and two of his sisters were at school in Ingleton.
Randal Sherlock was struck by lightning and killed at Ingleton Station. One of Randal's sons, Thomas, was the vicar at St Mary's Ingleton, and another, Cornelius, was the architect who redesigned the church.
Conan Doyle must have known the Sherlock family. You may deduce the reason why he changed his hero's name from Sherrinford to Sherlock.
Because of his family connection to Ingleton, Conan Doyle married his first wife Louisa at St Oswald's church, Thornton-in-Lonsdale (1885). The reception was at the Marton Arms.
Conan Doyle was a doctor and surgeon. He played in goal for Portsmouth and was an early skiing enthusiast in Switzerland. He believed in life after death and spirit communication.
The cheapest way to buy the paperback of Bike Rides In and Around York is direct from the Hedgehog Cycling shop.
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I will deliver by bike or post the book using Royal Mail.
If you have any questions about the book, please get in touch by email, info@hedgehogcycling.co.uk, or using the contact form.