Rise to challenge of enjoying bike ride high in Wensleydale

But then this Wensleydale cycling route, among a pack of 20 in the Yorkshire Dales and north-east produced by the AA was only 10 miles long, so it couldn’t be that challenging for a father more used to on-road rides and his protégée eight-year-old son? Or could it? We decided to go for it.

We pushed our bikes over an iron bridge over the Ure and the trackbed of the Wensleydale railway then pedalled up to Carperby past the Wheatsheaf Inn. Alf Wight (aka James Herriot) and Greta Garbo spent the night here – a year apart, I hasten to add.

We were soon pushing ourselves up the steep hill that leads to Bolton Castle. A pause was most certainly in order to get out breaths back. We arrived just an hour before early closure for a wedding.

It meant we had Lord Scrope’s bedchambers to ourselves, though. The Lord was chancellor to King Richard II and the man responsible for building the castle as a fortified manor house in the late 14th century.

Conscious that the bulk of the route and all its off-road content lay ahead we pressed ahead through a gate and out onto the open moors high above Wensleydale. In some fields we could make out ridges called strip lychets which are a legacy of medieval ploughing practices. Initially we cycled along a smooth track, then a rougher track and finally – after a new bridge that has replaced the ford marked on the map – onto a grassy path. It’s called Oxclose Road but there’s nothing road-like about it. The route is suited only to mountain bikes.

We were compensated by fabulous views and having the region completely to ourselves if you exclude the sheep that bolted in all directions as my son began his downward ascent above Carperby.

The fun continued as we explored the rounded hummocks formed of spoil from the 200-year-old lead mines, swooping up, down and around them as if we were BMX riders at Olympic Park but without the jumping.

A little further on we propped up our bikes beside a wooden footbridge to climb down to and explore a hidden waterfall below. Soon we followed its steep descent to the hamlet of Woodhall.

From there we turned left back onto the B-road homeward straight having one final rest at the Ballowfields local nature reserve.

As well as spoil heaps, lead mining has left the legacy of a rare community of plants including thrift, scurvy grass and spring sandwort that can tolerate high levels of the lead in the soil and are more normally found on cliffs and saltmarshes.

The last of our four bridges was an immaculate model-like structure over Eller Beck beside the nature reserve.

It was built only two years ago by members of the Otley and Yorkshire Dales branch of the Dry Stone Walling Association to replace a simple clapper bridge which was frequently covered by water.

As we crossed back over the Ure via the iron bridge to the car I felt like a participant returning from the wilds in I’m a Celebrity … Get me out of Here! No swanky hotel waiting for us, though, but a hot bath at home was just as pleasing a prospect.

In the final reckoning we’d had a short but strenuous and satisfying expedition.