Cycling adventures across Yorkshire, Britain and beyond
The East Riding is Yorkshire’s overlooked third. Largely flat, gentle farmland, it’s a Schubert song alongside the Wagnerian grandeur of the North Riding; a trowel compared with the colossal factories and mills of the West Riding. But it’s where I come from and I love it, and the small-scale, intimate dry valleys of the Wolds…
The North Riding of Yorkshire is why it’s dubbed God’s Own Country, much to the irritation of God, I expect. (During the pandemic’s restrictions it was joked that He must be in Yorkshire, because He’d be working from home.) It’s the third of the county with all the dramatic, TV-friendly scenery: the Dales and the…
The market town of Driffield – Gateway to the Wolds – is not associated with codebreaking. Alan Turing never cycled here, and it never had pioneering computers the size of a factory. It’s an East Riding farm-country hub, mainly known for having the largest agricultural show in Britain. But I was there today to explore…
In 2017 I rode to Hessay, a village west of York, to find the Centre of Yorkshire. At the point suggested by the Ordnance Survey as the county’s centroid, all I found was a cowpat. Since then, however, the OS has refined its calculations. It now reckons the exact geographical middle – the point on…
Stir-crazy from deskwork and gloomy weather, I got out today for a micro-adventure: an End to End of the City of York. At barely 14 miles long – from the northern extremity near Strensall, to the southern limit by Naburn – it vies for the title of ‘shortest End to End I’ve done’ with that…
A few miles upstream from York, the River Ure shiftily changes name to become the River Ouse. Why? Where? How? Who? I cycled along both rivers today to find out. The official cut-and-paste story is that the Ure becomes the Ouse at Cuddy Shaw Reach, just before Linton-on-Ouse. For reasons never explained, the hundred-metre-wide Ure…
Pontefract is Liquorice Town. Or was, anyway. The friendly, lively West Yorkshire place, its name corrupted by sweet-chewers, gave the world ‘pomfret cakes’ – chewy aromatic liquorice pastilles, stamped with an image of its historic castle. Liquorice was big business here through the 1800s and early 1900s, with ten factories employing over 5,000 locals. They…
Another cheap day out thanks to the £2 bus fare scheme, the X46 York–Hull service that takes bikes, and the rather good cycle gallery in Hull’s free Streetlife Museum. It’s a friendly, lively and engaging place well worth a visit. The only thing dry about the displays is the lack of moisture, which I was…
For my last main day of fieldwork updating the Slow Travel Guide to the Yorkshire Dales, I took advantage of the last day of the year of the Dales Buses. I took the 875 direct from York to the top of Wharfedale (a three-hour journey via Leeds, Ilkley, and then some spectacular scenery; it goes…
Another day of riding lovely scenery, updating the Slow Travel Guide to the Yorkshire Dales. Today I was checking out the villages of Three Peaks country: Ingleton, Clapham, Horton etc. The peaks themselves (Pen-y-ghent, 694m; Ingleborough, 723m; Whernside, 736m) are a popular walking challenge embraceable by even the most slightly adventurous. Which obviously rules me…