July 14, 2024
To Whitby
We’ve been worried about today’s ride to Whitby for awhile. To start, we were concerned by the turn in the weather. This is rugged country on the eastern slope of the North York Moors, too rugged to have ever been penetrated by a direct train line. You can get to Whitby from Scarborough by train but it’s quite roundabout (and lengthy and time consuming and costly)route with three transfers: back to York, trnsfer to Middleborough, transfer to Battersby, transfer to Saltburn.
So, not that - though the idea wasn’t t least given consideration. We’ll just hope for reasonable weather and snap in our rarely used Spartan brains.
The other concern is with the route. Like I said, there’s little penetration by the train network, but that’s also true of the road network. Without taking a long, round-about route high up into the moors you can get from here to there without either spending some time on one of the busy, scary A highways or on an unpaved route.
NCN’s solution here, and the one we originally planned to take, was to follow the Cinder Track the whole way. I knew that much of this route was unpaved, but it wasn’t until a few days ago that I zoomed in on the map to see the name of this route. With a name like the Cinder Track, it sounded like it could be unpleasant in spots. So I did some research and confirmed my suspicions. It doesn’t sound like a route that would meet with approval from the entire TA membership.
So I stared at the map looking for ways to minimize the unpaved CT miles to just three; and I took some hope from the fact that they were all reasonably gradually downhill. It looked like the best we could hope for.
Morning comes and the news is as good as we can hope for too. The wind is still from the north but has greatly abated; and we’re in luck with the rain situation too, with what looks like a four hour window promising only minimal precipitation. Were out the window as soon as the rains stop, feeling guardedly optimistic. Four hours is plenty for a 23 mile ride, especially if we stay dry most of the way.
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The first half of the ride goes as well as can be hoped. There’s a gradual climb most of the way but the traffic is reasonable on the B road where I was concerned that we might feel insecure enough to detour back the the Cinder Track here, an conditional alternative that we’d also mapped and loaded onto the devices. And though there’s been mist in spots we’ve basically ridden dry. We feel guardedly optimistic and wonder if we shouldn’t have made lunch reservations for 1:30 after all.
It’s really been reasonably pleasant up to this point and it’s too bad I had the camera zip-locked away for safety so we don’t have much to show for it other than Rachael’s video, which let’s stop and enjoy before continuing on.
Video sound track: Things Have Changed, by Bob Dylan
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Things take a radical change here, as from the high point of the day we have a mile-long drop to Ravenscar where we join the Cinder Track for the next three downhill miles. And our apologies to you and to ourselves, because other than for the initial part of this ride we have no video because Rachael put away her GoPro for safekeeping. It’s too bad, because the next three miles are as bad as any riding we can remember experiencing.
We’re maybe a half-mile into this interminable stretch when I hear an angry howl from behind: “I’m never coming back to the UK again!!”. I don’t respond, but just keep plowing ahead through the rocks, mud and river.
A half mile or so later there’s another exclamation stating that it will be awhile before she can look back at this horror and laugh about it. “The very definition of Type 2 Fun”, I accurately point out, but she’s not having it - it’s way off the chart, she insists.
Another half mile, and there’s another holler: “I’m down!”. And she is, and quite muddy and fortunately only slightly bleeding on her shin and her bike came through unscathed, because this is no place for wanting to fish out first aid supplies or deal with a mechanical.
Not long afterwards, an alarm goes off. It’s an alert on her phone generated by the Garmin when she fell, letting her know she’s experienced an incident. She fishes her phone out but can’t figure out how to shut off the alarm so for the next half hour we listen to its periodic wail. It goes nicely with the alarm from my IPad reminding us not to be late leaving the hotel that I forgot to cancel before we left and haven’t bothered to fish out of my pannier to shut down either.
Later we come to a short, slippery, steep muddy downhill stretch and Rachael calls out that her brakes are failing - we’ve been remiss in not checking them out for a while. I lay my bike down in the brambles and go back to help, and then it’s us carefully and slowly easing the bike down - her clutching the brakes, me walking backwards acting as a third brake.
And then another fall, fortunately not as bad as the first one. But that’s it for exceptional events and it’s just another mile of so of walking down this trail that’s more creek than path, doing our best to stay as dry and unmuddied as possible but with little success. Each bend in the trail initiates new groans as we round it and see no relief in sight. We walk most of it because it’s either too muddy and wet to bike safely, or too rocky for us to bike without risking bashing a derailleur on the rocks.
The surprising thing in all of this though is that we aren’t alone. We must be passed by twenty or so bikes maintaining a good pace, invariably on trail bikes and mostly outfitted for bikepacking and caked head to foot in glistening mud. So I think that’s the ticket - have the right bike and tires, keep a good pace so you can maintain momentum, and resign yourself to coming out totally soaked and filthy at the other end.
Finally though we come to an end of this monstrosity and return to pavement. Soon afterwards Rachael stops to throttle her maddening phone into silence, and since it’s not raining I take the opportunity to unbox the camera so we can get at least a few shots for the day.
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Our relief is short-lived though because almost immediately I round a bend and see a low spot in the road that is completely flooded out and obviously too deep to bike or wade through. We have the nightmarish thought that we might need to return to the Cinder Track, but fortunately there was an elevated walkway we could push our bikes across.
After that it is basically smooth sailing for the final seven miles. We of course don’t arrive by the 1:30 we had dreams of earlier and instead time it just wrong: too late for lunch and too early to check in. Fortunately we find an appealing but casual cafe we’re not too embarrassed to sit down at and Rachael savors her bowl of carrot and coriander soup while I enjoy my carbohydrate whatever and bottle of Ghost Ship Beyond the Pale Ale, which sounded quite appropriate.
There’s more to the day - we check into our apartment, we walk down to the waterfront for dinner - but it’s all pretty anticlimactic so I’ll leave it at that. Whitby itself is spectacular, but we’ll be here for two nights so it can wait.
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1 month ago
Today's ride: 23 miles (37 km)
Total: 2,695 miles (4,337 km)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 13 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 13 |
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https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/lincolnshire/whitby-via-robin-hoods-bay/
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I wonder if the acinder Track was in better repair 20 years ago, but different weather conditions would have made a big difference too. Maybe by August it would have dried out.
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