Yorkshire Dales Cycleway

The end of June saw Action Man and me doing the Yorkshire Dales Cycle Way: round trip of 120 miles from Kettlewell (we missed out the official Skipton start), over a leisurely four days.

The first leg, to Ingleton, looked relatively easy (flat, in other words) on the map profile, but the constant up and down of the foothills was pretty tiring. After a surprisingly steep drop into Settle, we found the Tourist Information staff very helpful in sorting out accomodation for that night; and Poppy's tearoom in Kirkgate a welcome source of tea, sandwiches and Yorkshire Curd tart.

The next day's ride saw some serious hills, starting with Kingsdale and Deepdale on the way to Dent, where we shared cycling stories over tea and toast with three chaps from the Cheshire Roads Club, then more climbing to the spectacular Dentdale viaduct, serving Dent station, the highest in England. We stayed in Hawes that night, in the last B&B room available in town as it was Gala day. Took ages, and the intervention of Hawes Tourist Information Office, to find somewhere to stay.

The hardest day of the tour was the Hawes to Leyburn leg, via Swaledale (where we saw plenty Swaledale sheep, with their black heads and white muzzles - said (on our map) to be 'a popular choice with hill farmers because of its ability to cope well with the harsh weather conditions and poor grazing on the high moors'). Leyburn isn't on the route, strictly speaking, but we couldn't get accomodation in nearby Wensley as planned, and this meant an extra couple of miles of uphill slog that we could have done without after a long day.

The weather detoriorated overnight, and the rain that flooded Sheffield, Doncaster and Hull fell on us too during the short hop back to Kettlewell. We rode through deserted roads over Coverdale, pushed along by a ferocious tail wind and drenched to our skins depsite waterproof jackets. The curlews we'd heard previously on the tour were clearly in evidence here, flying close to us, and pretty much the only other lunatic lifeform braving the storm.

Fortunately we'd left the car with friends and were able to get dry and changed before heading for Harrogate, and the very reasonably priced Yorkshire Hotel, for posh B&B before heading south for home.

Overall observations: the route is fantastic - fabulous scenary and hard riding; the way marking was a bit sporadic - definitely need a map; the people we encountered en route were very friendly; we took mountain bikes with road tyres, and used all the gears; good idea to book accomodation ahead, especially at the weekend; it's hilly!