Day 2 of the River Nidd ride featured the world’s first unicycle, Yorkshire trompe l’œuil, my namesake’s cave home, the UK’s tallest maypole, and the slightly flooded end of the ride at the mouth into the Ouse. Resuming at Knaresborough railway station, I made my way into the main square. A monument there (pic) celebrates…
Category: Yorkshire Ridings
Nidd 1: Scar House to Knaresborough
River Nidd Source Nidd Head, Great Whernside Mouth River Ouse, Nun Monkton Length 59 miles Towns Pateley Bridge, Knaresborough The sixth of my Rivers Rides was a varied two-day, 80-mile trip from remote moortop to muddy estuary along the River Nidd. Day 1 featured monster chess pieces, alpine views, snow and sun, unusual pork pies,…
York: Floody but unbowed
I’ve lived in York since 2011, so it’s about time I blogged about it. It’s a tourist Mecca of course, with a large and important religious building – the Minster – like Mecca. Though unlike Mecca, it has 365 pubs. (Actually the figure is more like 200, but it’s nice to think that a year’s…
Hunmanby: Good spirits
Yorkshire being a sort-of-country in its own right, it was only a matter of time before we got a National Whisky. Wales has one after all: Penderyn, based in the Beacons and launched in 2004. And England – the nation bordering Yorkshire – has had St George’s, in Thetford, since 2006. But in May 2016,…
Derwent 3: Kexby to Barmby
Day 3 of the River Derwent ride featured a lot of flooding, and… well, that was it, really. Flooding. But also a fascinating end, with an unexpected tour of a tidal barrage opposite a mighty power station. Now having switched to my touring bike, anticipating a day of tarmac on-road cycling, I resumed. The first…
Derwent 2: Malton to Kexby
Day 2 of the River Derwent ride featured the world’s biggest Yorkshire Pudding recipe, kamikaze hedgehogs, a fine old ruined abbey, and a satnav-cockup legend. Malton doesn’t make much of its position on the Derwent: no riverside cafes, promenades or costanera tapas bars. It’s equally uninterested in encouraging cyclists, to judge by the total absence…
Derwent 1: Lilla Rig to Malton
River Derwent Source Lilla Rig, North York Moors Mouth River Ouse, Barmby Length 72 miles Towns Malton, Stamford Bridge The fifth of my Rivers Rides was a varied three-day, 120-mile trip from remote moortop to muddy estuary along the River Derwent. Day 1 featured full-size plastic cows, a Dark Ages assassination, Cold War espionage, white…
Aire 2: Shipley to Airmyn
Day 2 of the River Aire ride featured a river under a railway station, a tale of three power plants, more reminders of the county’s cycling pre-eminence – and a lot of mud, both under my wheels and at the mouth of the river. I was out bright and early along the canal, heading to…
Aire 1: Malham to Shipley
River Aire Source Tarn Foot, Malham Mouth River Ouse, Airmyn Length 92 miles Towns Skipton, Keighley, Shipley, Leeds, Castleford, Knottingley The fourth of my Rivers Rides was a splendid two-day, 100-mile trip from Yorkshire’s one-lake Lake District to its three-power-station powerhouse along the River Aire. Day 1 featured England’s highest lake, a disappearing river, stunning…
Cottingley: Fairy story
The suburban village of Cottingley, a few miles northwest of Bradford, is one of those placenames you can’t help mentally auto-completing. Ilkley Moor… Baht ’at; Piltdown… Man; Loch Ness… Monster. And, thanks to capers by the stream in the back garden of this house (pic) in Main St, Cottingley… Fairies. Because in the 1920s, after…