Yorkshire Mucky Lane Riders Wednesday 20 March 2019

A select band of four other riders gathered at our house for refreshments (and a routine inspection by Ollie the cat who seems to think visitors are for his benefit) before we set out on what was to be our last ride as the Mucky Lane Riders’ group secretaries.

Our route took us down to Skipton before we joined the Leeds-Liverpool canal for a five mile stretch along the towpath past Gargrave to Bank Newton. Nick who will be taking over from us had said he’d walked the towpath a couple of days earlier and it wasn’t too muddy. By the time we reached Bank Newton, he’d revised his original thoughts. It is quite a testing stretch of off-road riding with at one stage a series of bumps and dips that require care.

A short stretch of tarmac took us to the splendid bright yellow painted Grade II listed building Newton Hall where we turned off onto a good track that soon becomes very indistinct as it crosses some sheep pasture land. A short sharp climb and a somewhat loose descent brought us to the mixed tarmac and gravel track to pass Stainton Cotes another fine Grade II listed mansion. Beyond this the track gets a lot rougher before coming down to Sustrans route 68.
From here another track took us to our lunch stop at Abbots Harbour by the Leeds-Liverpool canal. This last track is superb riding with a bit of everything crammed into just under two miles. Abbots Harbour is a very nice and surprisingly inexpensive eating place but is very popular especially at week-ends.
A short stretch of track took us past another Grade II listed building at Newton Grange Farm before arriving back at Bank Newton. One traverse of the canal towpath was enough for one day so it was back to Carleton on tarmac.
Thanks to Dave, Nick, Peter and our very welcome newcomer Steve for joining us on a very pleasant day out.

Neville Cohen 

{gallery}/media/jw_sigpro/users/0000000365/Mud from Carleton{/gallery}