As I cycle my own Yorkshire coast ride, I’m seeing plenty of publicity – in the form of posters and banners – for Route YC. It’s a set of road trips, no doubt inspired by the success of Scotland’s NC500, for cyclists and drivers to explore the Yorkshire coast.
And, as it happened, in the hostel common room at 6am this morning I bumped into adventure biker and offroad routemeister Markus Stitz, part of the team that put those routes together. I’d exchanged emails with Markus before (and we’ve both been regulars on Andrew Sykes’s Cycling Europe podcasts) but this was the first time we’d met face to face.
There was just us two up and about this early. It was curious to think that contained in the room were people who between them knew everything there is to know about cycle routes in Yorkshire. Even more curious to think this was still true when I left.
Anyway, I set off at first light on the coast road south-east. Next door to the hostel are two majestic, historic buildings of great emotional and spiritual significance to many people: Whitby Abbey, and Whitby Brewery.
I passed them, paying appropriate respects, and joined the Cinder Track, the rail trail that runs between Whitby and Scarborough. Well, not runs, so much as stumbles: in many stretches, most notoriously between Robin Hood’s Bay and Ravenscar, the surface is appalling.
The gravel between Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay is OK, though, and there are some thrilling views down over the sea and distant headlands. RHB is reached by one of coastal Yorkshire’s helter-skelter roads that plunge down to the harbour; I chatted to a photographer snapping hopefully in the morning mist, admired the high tide, and pushed laboriously back up to the top to get some breakfast snacks from the local shop.
I rejoined the Cinder Track for a while but detoured down tiny lanes and a river footbridge to Boggle Hole, a cove with a delightfully remote-feeling hostel tucked in at the foot of the cliffs. The hostel cafe though was closed for repairs this morning, so my hopes for a coffee were dashed. As in, B—! S—! It’s closed!
A long haul up a lane took me back to the railtrail, and that notoriously bad surface. Bumpy. Muddy. Rocky. Knobby. Stony. Dodgy. Dicey. I felt like Snow White with a malign alternative Seven Dwarfs.
Ravenscar, at the top, is the seaside resort that never was: a fanciful plan to make it a rival to Scarborough in the late 1800s never took off, mainly because the beach was pebbly and rough and a hundred metres down a rugged cliff. Apart from a puzzlingly broad and building-free road, there’s little clue of its investment-bubble history.
From here the railtrail surface was at least cyclable in fine-gravelly comfort, and slightly but noticeably downhill. I whizzed down past Hayburn Wyke to Cloughton, where some of our family used to live. From there to Burniston is brand new tarmac, wide but oddly bobbly: I wouldn’t want to skate on it.
With my aim of following as close to the coast as possible I took the main road from Burniston to Scalby Mills, on the northern edge of Scarborough, where I managed to find a coffee. It may have come from a machine, but I can genuinely say it was the best coffee I’d had that morning.
Scarborough’s promenade runs a couple of miles from here, round the headland and past the harbour, and beyond the other side.
It’s a delightful (and car-free) ride, initially past rainbow-coloured beach huts and a giant sculpture of a local WWII soldier.
Round the harbour is a gaggle of chippies, cafes, pubs, amusement arcades and bucket’n’spade shops, a historic police box as used by Dr Who, and an old phone booth repurposed as a tiny museum.
On the southern end of the prom I couldn’t resist taking the cliff railway up to the top, a funicular relic from 1875 still running, and welcoming bikes.
Scarborough to Filey was easy and car-free thanks to the old main road now being by-passed, and being mostly closed to traffic but open to bikes.
Curiously, further along, is a road called Carless Lane, but that wasn’t carless. I bet the estate agents are worried that such an address might put off prospective house buyers, like York’s Bad Bargain Lane.
In Filey I made a beeline for the Brigg. It’s a spur of land jutting out into the North Sea, and you can ride to the end of the ridge to enjoy splendid panoramas before it drops dramatically down to sea level.
Despite the murky autumn gloom there were plenty of walkers out there today.
Filey’s prom is pleasant and cyclable, and at its southern end there’s a lovely little car-free lane up a glen back to the top. I found my way through some paths and bridleways to the long B road towards Bridlington.
There were still two major things to tick off before I could check in to my Premier Inn Bridlington Seafront, though. First, a mile or so off the B road, was Bempton Cliffs. It’s one of Britain’s most spectacular places to see seabirds, who mass in huge colonies on the vertiginous chalk faces.
I’ve been before when the cliffs were an astounding din of zillions of gulls, kittiwakes, razorbills and the rest. Not today, though: even the tiny handful of birders outnumbered anything on the wing. I did see a puffin, Bempton’s signature bird – but only a plastic one, at the RSPB hut in front of the cafe.
Having enjoyed the clifftop views though – made all the better by having them to myself – I carried on to the dramatic chalk promontory of Flamborough Head, a signal station since Roman times. There’s an old chalky lighthouse, no longer operational, and a newer non-chalky one, whose service beam lit up the five o’clock darkness. The cafe was shut, so no chance of a cheery pint of lager and plate of chips.
A handful of miles away was Bridlington’s promenade, lit up and reasonably busy with strollers, dog walkers, anglers, and a few astoundingly pungent weed smokers. It was firework night, with a soundtrack of back-garden pyrotechnics: the evening fizzled, cracked, whistled, boomed and banged.
I couldn’t resist a celebratory snap of my bike leaning against the Way of the Roses finishing post, where I was in April this year after cycling the route on my 1979 Claud Butler. Back then I repaired to the nearby Wetherspoon for a dinner and couple of beers.
Not this time: I was a little more imaginative than that. Instead, I repaired to the nearby Wetherspoon for a dinner and three beers.
Miles today: 59
Miles from Redcar: 93