New route - Pickering Newtondale Forest - Dylan's Ride Blog

I managed to get out and do some riding between the inevitable bank holiday showers. First a nice blast around my favourite, 'special bridleway' in Raincliffe woods. As well as the usual route, I also tried a nice descent in Cockrah woods. Sadly, none of the legal bits link up into a particularly good route, so I'm not going to publish it here, but if I you find yourself on the top edge of Raincliffe woods you can pretty much figure it out for yourself.

I did actually manage to ride the whole of a route I have been considering for a while. It's a bit of a mixed bag, with some fairly boring farm tracks, but also a few really tricky descents, and an absolute classic bit of technical singletrack over Stony Moor, which lives up to it's name, with loads rocks scattered along a nice narrow path. I must confess I failed to clear all of the rocks, and managed to fall off once or twice. Fortunatly there was nobody to see my mistakes, as it's always more of an injury to pride than anything else when you fall off when going less than 3 mph. Still, it's a great challenge for anybody who fancies themselves as an expert at 'trials' like moves. If you do ride the route, do watch out for the big descent. The ruts and roots are pretty hairly and in wet weather will be sure to send you over the bars, assuming you have the cojones to ride it.