Last day of July was pretty hot up here, as well. With one eye on the forecast I got out early in the morning for a jaunt around Nidderdale. My route took me westward out tghrough Harrogate, Beckwithshaw, the Army Foundation College and along the long and straight Penny Pot lane to Menwith Hill. Then, down to Darley and along the Nidd to Birstwith. Up through Clapham Green to Hampsthwaite and over the river to Clint Bank Lane and home via the Nidderdale Greenway.
The Jubilee roundabout featured in the World Cup races in September, but no-one would have seen much of it since it was p*ss*ng down with rain the whole time. Since then it';s had a makeover, with these silhouette sclptures of squaddies advertising the Army Foundation College, which is just adjacent.
Turning left here takes you along a very long, straight road, due West. Since this road also encompasses the definition of "false flat", it's usally a slog intyo the prevailing Westerly winds. Not this day. With a breeze from the East good wind-assisted progress was made. Normally, long straight roads are pretty boring. But as you get toward the end of this road the view opens with a spectacular vista of the high moors (which a mobile phone picture really fails reproduce in their stark beauty) - This is Why We Cycle.
Of course, on the northern side of the lane are some reminders of a more prosaic nature. The “recycling centre” (refuse disposal centre) for one. Normally this makes its presence felt with a singularly unpleasant odour (actually, thinking about the complexity of the smell, maybe that should be a plurally unpleasant odour). Not today. Maybe the wind was blowing it away from me, or perhaps it was too early for the effusions to be ripened by the heat. The other features of the view to the right are the large wind turbines of the “Wind Farm”.
That’s what you’re supposed to think it is, but it’s suspiciously close to the Menwith Hill radomes: just the other side of the A59 (and visible here aslittle white dots in the distance), so perhaps it’s Yorkshire’s version of Nick Fury’s submersible airborne aircraft carrier from the Avengers movies, and the turbines are in fact giant propellors that will lift the whole complex into the air in the event of a military emergency. And then you look at the other side of the road, just opposite where this picture was taken, there’s a farm gate and the name of the farm:
Long Liberty? Coincidence??? Pull the other one. Sounds like an American code name for a military incursion into someone else’s country to me (“Operation Long Liberty” – the Invasion of [select peaceful state that no-one’s ever heard of here].
Anyway, I digress. Crossing the A59 you head past Menwith Hill and downhill into Darley, this can be an invigorating swoop down the main road, but this time I ent down down Sheepcote Lane – narrow, poorly surfaced and slow (if you don't want to reinvent the Death Fork with the assistance of a crater-like pothole). A quick stop for a photo across Nidderdale just shows how difficult it is to capture the true nature of the landscape on a mobile phone.
From Darley, along the riverside road into Birstwith. Again, a shady and sheltered ride, with the trees arching over the road from both sides. A green tunnel to cycle through. The road trends away from the river as you near Birstwith, and you have to cycle uphill a bit, but it’ s nothing like what awaits you on the way out: the dreaded 14% slope up to Clapham Green. Fortunately, it’s only a couple of hundred metres, but it certainly feels like a lot more. The good news is that once you reach the top, it’s a long smooth freewheel down into Hampsthwaite, plenty of time to rest the legs before you have to climb out of that village too. The village green has a rather good display feature (a large bronze plaque) on the village green, with information about some of the features of the village. Apparently, there used to be a 3-storey house across the road from the church, called the Thackeray house, after a well-to-do local family. One member of that family was the author William Makepeace Thackeray, author of Vanity Fair. (Although whether he actually ever lived in Hampsthwaite is moot. The plaque didn’t indicate that he did live there, so I rather suspect that he didn’t. His Wikipedia entry also makes no mention of a Yorkshire connection, so the parish council are bathing in reflected glory, here).
There are 2 ways you can go out of Hampsthwaite. One is to turn back southward, with a 2km slog up the north-facing side of Nidderdale back up to the A59 (average about 8%) or north up the other side of the Dale. This is a sharper climb, but a lot shorter, and you exit the village across a narrow stone bridge, with meadows on one side and a wheatfield onthe other, with a statuesque sycamore tree surrounded by the wheat.
Once up the climb, it's off-road for most of the way home, as you enter the Nidderdale Greenway via Ripley and Harrogate (National Cycle route 67: you may get your kicks on route 66, but you're in heaven on route 67). Th Greenway is on a disused railway line, and passes over the Nidd at Bilton Viaduct, enjoying views up and down the Nidd Gorge. On one side, nature:
On the other, Harrogate and its sewage works:
A 52km circuit with some interesting ups and downs, completed in time for lunch. (And missing the thunderstorm that broke at about 4pm)
