North York Moors opens four new gravel routes, with train to the start

Train travel as a base of operations: The North York Moors National Park in the northeast of England has opened four new gravel routes. Each route starts right next to a station of the Esk Valley Railway. Together with the three routes that opened earlier this year at Sutton Bank, there are now seven ‘Gravel Explorers’. We have put all seven of them on GPX in our route database.

Champagne gravel and disappeared iron mines

The new circuits are located on the northern side of the park, around Guisborough, Great Ayton and Danby. The park was designed by them together with local cyclists John and Lois Fife. They follow existing paths, forest paths and quiet country roads, and are intended for gravel bikes, mountain bikes and hybrids (or the electric variants). On several sections there is some English champagne gravel call it: flat, tight and fast.

• Gribdale Gravel Explorer – 11 km, 300 hm, easy/medium. Introduction tour around Roseberry Topping, the ‘Matterhorn of the north’. Mixture of asphalt and the first gravel sections, ideal if you’re new to off-road. Start at Bike Base in Gribdale, where you can also rent (e-)mountain bikes.
• Ingleby Horseshoe Gravel Explorer – 35 km, 620 hm, average. From Easby and Ingleby Greenhow to the Ingleby Horseshoe, a long undulating stretch of champagne gravel. Back over Percy Cross Rigg and through Guisborough Forest.
• Esk, Coast and Iron Gravel Explorer – 55 km, approximately 1,000 hm, difficult. Through the ‘Land of Iron’, the old iron ore region, along Castleton, Commondale and Danby to the coast near Skinningrove. Back over a former railway and cycle route NCN 168 to Guisborough. The park claims 60 km; our GPX file measures 55 km.
• Blakey and Fryup Gravel Explorer – 50 km, approximately 1,000 hm, difficult. From the Danby Lodge National Park Centre up to Blakey Ridge, over the old railway line across the plateau to The Lion Inn, and back through Fryup Dale. Choose a clear day: on top you are exposed quite a bit.

By train to the start

What makes these routes special is that each start is close to a station on the Esk Valley Railway, the line between Middlesbrough and Whitby. You can therefore get there by train, or skip a section along the way by taking the train. The Gribdale route, for example, starts right next to the stations of Great Ayton and Kildale. Cycling journalist Guy Kesteven made video guides of the routes for the park.

And the three routes at Sutton Bank

Earlier this year, three tours began on the west side of the park from the Sutton Bank National Park Centre, with bike rental at Sutton Bank Bikes:

• Moorland Meander – 25 km, 200 hm, easy. Almost all of it is on top of the plateau, with champagne gravel over Little Moor.
• Rievaulx Raider – 38 km, 600 hm, average. Through Boltby Forest to Hawnby and along the abbey of Rievaulx.
• Hambleton Horizon – 50 km, 865 hm, medium/heavy. Along the old cattle drovers‘ road on the edge of the Cleveland Hills to Osmotherley, ending with the ’Finest View in England’ at Sutton Bank.

From the Netherlands

The North York Moors are easily accessible from the Netherlands by night boat from Rotterdam to Hull. From Hull, it takes between an hour and an hour and a half to get to Sutton Bank or Guisborough by car. The region’s serious approach to gravel is also evident in the events: the Minds and Miles tour at Sutton Bank in late September and the British Gravel Championships in Dalby Forest.

Would you like to stay nearby? Then go to Landal Woodland Lakes, where you are close to the North York Moors but you can also get to the Yorkshire Dales from there.

Source: North York Moors National Park Authority (press release and Gravel Explorer routes).