Guisborough

Went to explore Guisborough.   There's a 11km-ish red route.   It has a long ride out from the car park on fireroad and up a very long climb.   Eventually you read the top and find some singletrack, up and down a bit (including pushing up soem nice looking downs, hmmmm).   The final descent  (at the far west end of the hill) is great and actually quite technical, almost natural feeling singletrack.   However, it ends about half way up the hill, so officially its the fire road back down.   But there's clearly loads of cheeky singletrack all over and the bits we found were excellent.   There's no trail map though so it's hard to work out how to link everything together efficiently!

Unremarkable route round Swainby

We picked a route from the usually excellent Vertebrate Publishing North York Moors Guide. It's route 3 if you want to make a special note to avoid it, which you should do as it has nothing of interest except some nice views. Actually I guess it would be a good novice route as the going is never unpleasantly muddy or anything, it's just technically unchallenging.

The descent which looks promising goes over Scarth Wood Moor from 462999, via Scarth Nick (473002) and down Limekiln Bank to 483008. However, it just isn't that entertaining! I can't really be bothered to describe the rest of the route, sorry!

North York Moors

Two days riding round the North York Moors exploring bits from the new Good Mountain Biking Guide. A short but nicely technical circuit from Kildale included the descent to from 615075 to Baysdale Abbey (617069), singletrack across Great Hograh Moor (627066 to 855068) and Warren Moor (632078 to 626087), all connected with the obvious and perfectly acceptable doubletrack/road. The singletrack is surprsingly narrow! Where it is steep it can be quite tricky, where it is an easier gradient its great fun and draws you into riding it faster and faster! the gudebook suggested most of these could be riddne in either direction, which is moslty true but the southern side of Warren Moor is just loose, whereas the northern side is much more fun.

The second day was lower on technical riding but better on atmosphere and tea shops. Also a much shorter drive from the south, starting near Osmotherely. The technical riding comes between Dale Head (495948) and Locker Wood (511944). Some road and birdelways connect to the tearoom in Hawnby (543893) though the bridleway is soemwhat indistinct in places, take care not to follow the obvious doubetrack from Moor Gate (540917), this is not the bridleway! The reutnr from Hawnby was quite a drag, and the bridleway between Sunnybank Farm (535892) and Dale Town Common (512895) was somewhat overgrown. The rest of the return home over the moors on doubeltrack was fast and atmospheric. The descent off Black Hambleton (480943 to 479959) starts steep, technical and loose, though not for long, and eventually becomes smooth and fast with drainage channels which even I managed to jump!

Dalby - the whole thing!

A few weeks ago we finally got round to riding the entirety of the Dalby Red route in one go. It feels quite long - most trail centres max out at about 25km, but Dalby is 37km! And it's mostly singletrack too - no long sections of fire road, or endless climbs. I would recommend starting at Dixons Hollow - then you get to go to the cafe at either the Visitors' Centre or the Purple Bike Shop two thirds of the way round.

My main complaints would be that it was muddier than you'd expect from a trail centre - unreideably muddy in places. And, while there's a lot of singletrack, only a few bits make you go "wow" - most notably some of the descents on the Riggs and Dales sections which have some large berms and tight switchbacks. Maybe some bits I couldn't ride fast enough to make them "flow".

However, there's been loads of new black graded trail put in for the World Cup. Some bits were open and our impression was that while the descents are only a little trickier than you'd expect from a trail centre, the ascents were nails! Looking forward to riding the whole route once it's finished.

North York Moors

There’s a nice circuit around Cropton Forest which has a nice enough outward leg, and an awesome inward leg with a section of slightly downhill singletrack with occasional rock obstacles (SE724955 to743903).

The section beneath Wainstones from the café on Carlton Bank (NZ523030) (seems acceptable to park if you eat there afterwards) to the bottom of Clay Bank (NZ573033) is a fun rollercoaster ride in either direction. From the middle of this section, a push up to Cold Moor (NZ553018) is just about justified by the fun descent to Chopgate (NZ997558). Clay Bank itself (NZ573033 to579029) is a push up, and a nervy decent on very steep (but at least not loose) cobbles. The approach to the top Clay Bank across the western crest of Urra Moor from SE577997 is indistinct, and hence unridebale. The rest of this moor provides some scenic yet technically easy doubletrack, with one further fun descent into Cockayne (SE634986 to 626983).

Dalby Forest has an unavoidable entry fee of 7 quid, and unlike many similar locations, it doesn’t seem possible to avoid this by parking elsewhere. The long red circuit is on our tick list; the one time we went we got tempted off the excellent red by an easy looking bit of northshore on the black. Unfortunately, after the northshore ends, it returns to its original form which is loose natural trail – not really worth it with all the high quality man made trail in the vicinity.