Yorkshire Dales (Day 3)

Kirkby Stephen to West Moor
Wednesday was always going to be mostly road riding, but the roads across the Yorkshire dales are quiet enough. After our decision to ride further today, Tina had come up trumps with a guest house in East Cowton. It was just off the top of my maps, but we found it easily enough on the hostel's computer.
After stocking up on shortbread from the co-op, and scoffing cereal and toast for breakfast, we set out at about ten o'clock for our 60 mile ride.

Just to get us warmed up for the day - to get us over that first real challenge, there's a 20% gradient out of Nateby village. As we ascended, climbing from our starting altitude of 150m up to a height of over 500m in the space of a few miles, the landscape changed, becoming more and more barren. Unshorn sheep wandered across the road in front of us and apart from a couple of landrovers and a tractor we saw very little evience of human activity.

There were one or two oddities in the windswept wilderness. As we looked down into the valley a giant dry stone wall sheep pen caught our eye because the grass within the walls was lush green, while everything outside was grey-brown. As we began to descend, stone structures began to become a feature in many fields, their numbers increasing, with more and more fields containing two storey stone barns in the corner, until in the valley between Keld and Thwaite it seemed that every field contained one of these unusual buildings.

Lunch was a very civilised affair, sitting outside the Kearton hotel in Muker. On the menu mine sounded like a gourmet dish worthy of at least two michelin stars, but turned out to be cumberland sausage with onion rings. Actually it tasted fine, but I was picking bits of gristle out of my teeth the rest of the day. Martin was able to keep his rapidly diminishing wad of cash in his pocket for once, because they took American Express!

West Moor to Grinton
From Muker, the bus to Richmond cost 50p, but we saved our money and took the bikes instead. For a couple of miles we weren't far behind the bus either, because the roads were very narrow and much of it was downhill. Our route ran down the Swaledale valley, the barren moss giving way to wooded hillsides. We stopped for ice cream at three o'clock in the picture postcard village of Grinton, We'd originally intended to stay there for the night, so riding further was without question a very good decision.

On into Richmond, the hamstring that had been niggling me during training started to play up. It wasn't bad enough to affect my riding, but I was concerned that it might get worse, so I started to ease off. Martin was very understanding and we stopped for a short break in Brompton. This part of England seems quite isolated from other parts of the country, and they've developed some strange customs and forms of entertainment. Duck racing anyone? Actually I think that would be worth watching.

From Scorton, there were plenty of signs for 'Cowtons' and it was only four o'clock, so we were in high spirits, opting to finish our journey along the bridleway from Atley Hill to East Corton and finish our journey having ridden at least a little off-road at the end of day three.