I return today from the “timeless classic” Settle loop.

Upon embarking on the adventure, I was promised “steep climbs, rocky trails, and fast descents to die for” – and I couldn’t wait to enjoy “The descent back to Settle”, which “takes some beating for naturally technical trails, followed by epic speed”. In short – a “cracking south Dales outing”.

(References available on request)

This, like many other days I have spent in the three or four years living in and around Yorkshire turned out to be another sadly disappointing experience.

That’s not to say I didn’t get “steep climbs, rocky trails, and fast descents” – but the “steep climbs” were muddy sheep shit strewn long grass dragging winches up false summit after false summit. The “rocky trails” met me at the top – offering a loose stony flat bridleway that wouldn’t bother a road bike on 28c tyres. The “fast descents to die for”? Smooth, tarmac road. As I descended into Malham on the classic road cyclists’ climb, I rued that I couldn’t meet the person that sold me on this route and slap him in the face. It’s ok – think I – look at the route profile – I bet the descent to Settle is grand. Nope, it’s another road.

And this isn’t even that rare an occurance. I might go so far as to say that, with the exception of a small amount of riding in and around Swaledale – the majority of “Mountain Biking” in Yorkshire is just simply not worth anyone’s time or effort to drive to or work for. Bring a cyclocross bike – or maybe a bikepacking rigid singlespeed and go camping – and perhaps you’ll have fun. The riding is less technical than the South Downs Way – which I have literally done on a bike with 30c tyres.

Hawes? Boring.
Nidderdale? More gravel 4×4 tracks.
Brimham? Full of old people on eBikes
Sedburgh? Technically – that’s Cumbria buddy – you don’t get that one.
Malham Moor and Weet’s Top? Another unrewarding slog.
Ilkley Moor – A short five minutes of fun before someone indignantly tells you off

You can bring your road bike and get run over by Range Rovers motoring from golf club to sunday lunch but me? I’m with the gang: The single best route in Yorkshire is the A65 to the Lake District.

End grumble.

Oh – and cut gate is about as valid as Sedburgh – that’s the Peak district, even if it is just inside the lines – but if you insist, I will allow you it. One or two trails near Reeth, and Cut Gate.

When I were a lad, all we had was a penny farthing in a cesspit.

I’m from Yorkshire & i fully concur with you’re assessment of the Dales.

Ard rock trails are probably my favourite riding in the whole of the UK, granted they ain’t available all year, but I’m sure they’re in Yorkshire…

Stainburn, Grenoside and wharncliffe are in Yorkshire.

cheeky Calderdale will scare you shitless I reckon.

Stainburn is a trailcentre, which quite obviously doesn’t count. Also overrated.

I could continue about the moors; an enjoyable mix of gentle boggy slopes and poorly maintained off-camber doubletrack descents. Great stuff. Not.

*Sedbergh

I kind of get where you’re coming from re. some of the riding in the dales. That said, I spent a couple of weeks in Settle and really enjoyed the riding. Granted, there is a lot of old school XC but very pleasant place to ride none the less.

Again, NYM has loads of trails but not a lot gnarr. Still a great place to ride any kind of bike.

It all depend what you want from a bike ride. If you’re enduro max mentalist powered by monster then yes, you may be better off elsewhere.

Where in the UK do you consider to have great mountain biking?

Just searching Rightmove for Brimham, sounds ace.

Scotland and the Lake District. Consider my benchmark for a great ride Skiddaw via Ullock Pike.

I suppose, coincidentally, this is also where the Mountains are. So it would make sense that the mountain biking is better.

bet you cant ride mmbop steps.

Stainburn’s been trashed since they felled all the trees on the other side of the road… this side is pretty much normal forest singletrack. If you take it for what it is, it’s a decent enough hack.

Don’t agree on the Nidd loop, yes it’s doable on a CXer (I’ve done it plenty) but it’s challenging if you put some effort in.

I reckon, you aren’t putting enough effort in or are waiting for a van to pick you up and take you to the top.

4/10 for the rant purely because it’s a click bait formulaic mini-rant designed to rile folks up and get all frothy.

Maybe the Lakes are indeed “your thing”

I suppose, coincidentally, this is also where the Mountains are. So it would make sense that the mountain biking is better.

That depends on your definition of mountain biking.

Well there’s more than one kind of MTBing and more than one way to enjoy it. Down here in South Wales we have lots of that kind of riding – 4×4 tracks across the ‘mountain’ linked up with road, and it can be a cracking day out.

Of course we also have stacks of technical trails hidden in all the woods too if you fancy it.. but you wouldn’t know it was there unless you get the Strava heatmap out 🙂

As a Yorkshireman who lives in Scotland, I did find the mountain biking in Yorkshire less exciting after I moved back from 5 years of riding in the Highlands. But that doesn’t mean it’s crap – it’s great by the national standard. The problem is, you’re closest to the worst stuff outside East Yorkshire (where there is genuinely nothing).

The Dales is a different sort of mountain biking – long days, taking in the scenery and so on. And it sounds like you did a route on a map published 30 years ago. It’s hard to sniff out technical stuff in the Dales and Moors but, particularly in the Moors, it’s there if you know where to look. But West and South Yorkshire both have exciting gnadge-fest trails, you just happen to live far enough away from them that you’ve deemed it fit to write off an entire county of great trails.

You’ve mostly conflated Yorkshire with the Dales.

I’m inclined to agree about the Dales.

NYM is better but routing can be difficult, best spending some time in Guisbrough woods, doing a 2 hour loop round the other local woods with moor tracks to get some miles in, then more time in the woods.

As for route descriptions, ST is almost as bad as MBR. I did one of their NYM routes and either they put the wrong map in, or didnt ride it because their favourite descent in the area/UK (cant remember the exact platitude but regardless it was undeserved) is a bit of unrewarding grassy doubletrack.

Warncliffe, Stainburn, Guisbrough etc dont count as theyre trail centre’s and/or cheeky single track. Great riding but not unique to Yorkshire. Like saying the m4 corridor has great riding and citing Swinley.

I reckon, you aren’t putting enough effort in or are waiting for a van to pick you up and take you to the top.

4/10 for the rant purely because it’s a click bait formulaic mini-rant designed to rile folks up and get all frothy.

Maybe the Lakes are indeed “your thing”

Not sure I remember many shuttle vans in the lake district the last time I was carrying my bike up the hill on my shoulders. Truth be told; I would probably have accepted the lift if it was capable of getting up there!

I’m quite proud that you think my rant was formulaic and incited people to click – It was a stream of consciousness, all from the heart baby.

A ride is what you make it , set aside any dissapointment and focus on aspects that you enjoyed.

Complaining about an entire county’s terrain just makes you sound a miserable douche

Haven’t done much MTB in Yorkshire – one day round Hebden with a local ‘guide’, one day out of Todmorden way back in the early days of GoFar, and a Settle / Malham loop which sounds a bit like what you describe. The first was a grand day out on mostly double track with packhorse trails, the second was double track, tarmac and a beast of a climb up Malham road (name escapes me for the moment – ah, Mastiles Lane) and the third was decent rock gardens, off camber blast..

It was fine, plenty nearer to home but I’m very lucky (and happy with big days out of XC riding.

I don’t know who wrote that guidebook on the Settle Loop, but that is not so much over-egging it, as launching a 2-tonne chicken at your head. But I think you (or the guidebook writer) must have gone wrong somewhere if you ended up going down Cove Road into Malham, as that isn’t on the Settle Loop.

But only the guidebook author is pretending it’s anything other than an mild XC loop. As with your example from the Lakes, you have to know the area and be prepared to ride cheeky stuff if you want a bit more challenge.

(And to be honest, if Ullock Pike is your benchmark of a good quality ride, you need to prepare yourself for a lot more disappointment elsewhere).

Part of the challenge of what we do is finding ways to enjoy whatever terrain we find ourselves riding. If you can only derive pleasure from steep, rocky tech, I reckon there’s a huge percentage of any ride which is just the drag to get there.

The French have it right, VTT is a much more accurate name for it. We should have stuck with ATB*, rather than MTB.

*Which is also my initials!!

Beauty of a lot of West, North and South Yorkshire is the riding out of the door’s OK and the neighbours (Derbyshire and Cumbria) have great trails. Bloody huge area though for the avoidance of doubt. Me – I’m in Holmfirth and rarely stick my bike in the car – when I do it’s for 20-30 mins.

Pffft, everyone knows the home of British Mountain Biking is Surrey.

Ilkley Moor – A short five minutes of fun before someone indignantly tells you off

You’re doing it wrong.

Also, try the peak district.

All areas seem to hve prevalent types of riding and locals get used to it. Eroded ancient rights of way – drove roads and cart tracks in northern england. short little singletrack sections in the south. Big days out in Scotland that go road / good estate road, poor estate road, path, where is the path? and then the reverse in Scotland.

Pffft, everyone knows the home of British Mountain Biking is Surrey.

Swindon surely?

All areas seem to hve prevalent types of riding and locals get used to it. Eroded ancient rights of way – drove roads and cart tracks in northern england. short little singletrack sections in the south. Big days out in Scotland that go road / good estate road, poor estate road, path, where is the path? and then the reverse in Scotland.

Kind of misses the OP’s point – muddy ascent, small bits of gravel at the top, and tarmac descent is not what he feels he was led to expect! There’s plenty of great cheeky riding around Yorkshire, but he’s denying himself the pleasure by bowing to the almighty dog walkers/red socks/whoever else is berating him for being there on two wheels. And clearly not riding the right places in Yorkshire if he does want to stick to bridleways.

Swindon surely?

Bro, do you even have a trail dog?

We had a Labralurcher called Rapha, but he started shitting in the T5 after he burned himself on the pizza oven.

We traded him for some gravel socks.

Yeah Bro, I have a Vizsloodle in the back of my Audi.

I love off road cycling in Yorkshire especially the Dales. But I tend to make it more about the scenery and Cafe/pub stops and generally take my crosser rather than a mountain bike.

Coolio.

Fancy going bike packing sometime?
I’ll bring the coffee grinder.

As I descended into Malham on the classic road cyclists’ climb, I rued that I couldn’t meet the person that sold me on this route and slap him in the face.

I remember Back In The Day when MTB guide books used to be all about carrying up a steep hill and the “blasting” (relative term…) down a fireroad or tarmac descent. 😉

MBR carried on that fine tradition for many years by constantly publishing route guides the wrong way round, it became a bit of a running joke.

There is an off-road descent into Malham although to be fair if you’re hooning down a road, you’re likely (a) to have missed it already or (b) to miss it as you go flying past it. I’ve ridden it both ways, I know it’s there although I’m not sure I could tell you where it is!

Anyway, you’re confusing “the Yorkshire Dales” with “Yorkshire”. To be fair, I prefer the CX bike in “the Yorkshire Dales”. The Yorkshire Dales (IMHO) is lovely on a CX although there’s a few honourable exception trails, mostly more hidden away. Malham Cove itself has some wonderful technical rocky descents alhtough perhaps best outside of sunny weekends when they’re invariably packed with walkers…

Embsay crags is in the dales. It is quite good.

Embsay crags is in the dales. It is quite good. Not as good as the lakes or scotland or Morzine or Whistler or Torbole but good.

I’m a regular in the Dales (because it’s close to home) and yes it is mostly tame XC fitness rather than hardcore, maybe even a slog, but it’s big ups and big downs fitness challenges. The Settle loop descent on tarmac to Langcliffe is better if you turn left and descend into Settle. Still not remotely hardcore but off road and more errrr fun(ish). As others say, you are talking about a very small area of Yorkshire that has lots of big MTB options but that isn’t very technically challenging, but is a dam sight better in options and remoteness than many others on here have any sort of access to. You’re a spoilt brat, imagine if you were regularly riding in East Anglia, East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, South East etc.
If you can’t find fun on Ilkley Moor then you’re doing something wrong

Warncliffe, Stainburn, Guisbrough etc dont count as theyre trail centre’s and/or cheeky single track. Great riding but not unique to Yorkshire. Like saying the m4 corridor has great riding and citing Swinley.

Wharncliffe ….trail centre / cheeky ?? an odd description some excellent natural trails and DH / technical rockgardens for those that can do that of thing…only crossing the open Chase is cheeky …limited in volume maybe…the OP seems to be quoting a route description from the “pipe lagging on the top tube a must to help carry you bike” era…maybe Yorkshire lacks proper mountains but for those that live there plenty of good riding

Edit and can only assume that those who live in the Hepstonstall/Hebden Bridge / Calderdale area of Yorkshire are too busy riding to speak up

OP – have a look at the NYM route in Singletrack issue 120 (or stop into the Yorkshire Bike Hub). I’m not saying it’s going to a Lakes-esque gnarr fest but there is some decent techy riding to be had. Certainly at least one trail that would give most the fear.