Hi all, her indoors family live in otley and we visit every few weeks, now on the drive over we drive past Skipton on the a59 and ive been thinking about jumping out the car with the bike and riding over the moors the rest of the way, my question is has anyone done this or know which route would be best??

Cheers,

Phil

There is a BW from Skipton to Addingham. Not sure after that.

The BW direct from Skipton to Addingham isn’t really that rewarding in that direction. Much better would be to start at Rylstone (5mins drive/ 15 mins ride from the Skipton ring road) and head over Barden Moor towards Bolton Abbey. After a nice coffee stop there you could pick your way up to Beamsley Beacon and find some tracks over the moor at the back down towards Ilkley and Askwith, and finish by road.

Others will have the best routes from Beamsley onwards, as I don’t get over that way much.

I can’t think of anything better than hutch above and even that wouldn’t be great after bolton abbey. If you did that you could head along beamsley moor and turn left on BW to timble. Someone here will be able to thread you a route from timble to otley. The BW between skipton and addingham is very good the other direction. Do you own a road bike as there are great back roads between skipton via ilkley to otley.

Not anymore, just the mtb, some good tips so far, will check them out over the next few days!

You can definitely get a good ride by being dropped somewhere along the way. Perhaps if it’s drier a better option would be to be dropped in Addingham and make a half loop including the best bits of Rombalds/Ilkley Moor/Otley Chevin?

Again, someone may have a better idea of the quality on the other side of Ilkley because it’s not a regular stomping ground for me.

The run down from top of Middleton Moor along the the ridge going east is brill. You can pick up Swinsty then even Stainburn or turn south down to to the river.