PUSH-biking around the UK

27 miles (43.5km)

We thought the Beech House in York was awesome - and it was - but the Abbey Inn is something else. Such breakfast! We're staying here two nights because there are a few places in the vicinity we want to visit; it will be hard indeed to leave.

Today consisted of 'adventures'. After visiting Ampleforth to divest ourselves of some... extraneous... items (including the sneakers!), sending them back to Sheffield because Liz was, of course, correct about us having too much stuff, we headed to the moors. The first aim was Sutton Bank, home of the North York Moors National Park Centre. Getting there involved going up a 16% gradient; this, I could not manage - and even James pushed his bike up some of it. The Centre was somewhat anticlimactic, but the view was quite impressive. It's at 981 feet above sea level; we had climbed most of that getting there...

From Sutton Bank, on to Rievaulx Abbey, and very impressive it is too. Dissolved of course in the 1530s by Henry VIII, there are still some impressive sections left standing. And the setting is beautiful. As it started to rain, we headed off to Helmseley, to see their castle.

It really doesn't look like much from below, but there are some interesting walls and chambers left to see.

This is where the day got interesting. Rather than following an A road home, we went back to Rievaulx and then picked up a bridleway, to go over the North York Moor - basically to see what was there, and take a shortcut. Armed with an Ordnance Survey map and James' indomitable sense of direction, we headed off... We took just two wrong turns, neither for very long. It looks like this particular track hasn't been used in many months, because in some sections there *is* no track: we had to line ourselves up between the gates. Particularly through several fields full of sheep. In the rain.


It stopped raining as we went through the next section, a forest north of Wass; which was good, because the last section of road involved a descent including a 14% gradient and a 1:6 gradient. It also had little streams of water running across it, and some sections of gravel. Earlier in the day I had nearly broken my hands gripping the brakes going down a very steep section between Rievaulx and Helmseley; it hadn't helped that a jet flew over at the same time, creating a sonic boom (first time I've heard one). Unbelievably, I also managed this descent, although with thumping heart and a deathgrip on the brakes again.

We got back to Byland in time to see the Abbey - and it too is way more impressive than it looks from the outside.

They have, apparently, the most significant collection of floor tiles still in situ of any abbey (in Britain? Europe? can't remember).


Ending the day in the restaurant here at the Inn seemed an appropriate complement to a 28 mile 'rest day'.

Coda: having seen many, been stalked by one amongst the sheep, and got close enough to take one's picture, unfortunately I have to admit that I will not be achieving one of my stated aims for this trip: I do not believe I will be eating pheasant at any time in the near future.