Sharon Lowe has led two rides for us this summer and both have been crackers, repaying the effort she has put in to recce-ing and route planning.

On a fair day with rain not forecast until around 6pm, nine of us assembled at the White House pub ready to embark on an morning exploration of the moorland plateau between the Cragg Vale Road and Sowrby Bridge. A gentle warm up along the Head Drain on Blackstone Edge took us to the Cragg Vale Road where Jackie spent some time freeing Will’s brakes - he’d been battling not only a headwind but sticking brakes - before we all sped down the road to the turn off to the new-ish trading estate at Turkey Lodge and thence up on t’t moors. Unbeknown to those members without a map the route is really a series of loops exploring the plateau - well “plateau” is a bit misleading as there are plenty of challenging ups and downs to be had - as we circled around on interestingly named lanes such as Water Stalls Road and Copy Nook Lane past interesting farmsteads like Catherine House with its mysterious factory chimney, Folly Hall and Flints Hall.

Unfortunately John had a major chain set breakdown on one of our loops. Fortunately Jackie was there to effect a repair allowing John to ride gingerly on one ring front and back but obviously unable to do justice to the tracks and bridleways we had planned so Sharon took the remaining riders on the planned route while we shepherded John back to the Cragg Vale road where we wished him well on his ascent back to the car park and Will on his descent to the pub to meet with his wife.

The repair group then “repaired” to explore some of the tracks not on the official route and were having such good fun that I missed Sharon’s call to say they were heading to the Robin Hood pub for lunch! We arrived a good 20 minutes later and all enjoyed a good lunch with excellent (if slightly frisky!) local ales! Why we have not used it before as a lunch stop on one of our rides I cannot think; it won’t be our last visit to this very cyclist friendly pub.

The afternoon was payback time for the run down to the Robin Hood. Up past the Hinchliffe Arms and up, and up and up to Withins Clough reservoir then up and up past the coffin stone at Withins Gate:

More about the coffin stone here:

and then onto the Pennine Way being exceptionally courteous to any walkers we found en route! Walking, pushing and cursing and even occasionally riding we made it up to the wonderful causeway setts along Warland Drain to the tip of Warland reservoir where we gingerly passed the bikes down and back up the culvert to join the official diversion round the wrong side of the reservoir! Considerably dryer and more used than on our recce this was a surprisingly enjoyable, if peaty and heathery, diversion before we re-joined the main reservoir road which skirts the escarpment back to the White House. Unfortunately the forecast - not “promised" as Chris informed us! - rain came early with a drop in temperature and rather than sitting in the sun with a pint as we did on the recce everyone took shelter in their cars to begin the trek homeward.

Thanks again Sharon for an excellent day out on’t moors!

Rob Newton