West Yorks Cycle Route

[colly]

While Colinj, Bokonon, Calum and I were out yesterday we passed close by, maybe even covered part of the West Yorks Cycle Route.
It is a route which circumnavigates West Yorks and sticks as close as possible to the boundary.
Starting and finishing at the same point it is according to the map 157 miles with 12,000ft of climbing.
Talk got around to ambitions of doing the whole route over a weekend, or if anyone thought they were up for it in one day.
It would be a real challenge not just because of the distance but obviously also the amount of climbing as well. Some of the climbs would be difficult on just a short trip out never mind after hours in the saddle.

So. It's up for discussion and suggestions. Not sure where tea cafes or tea rooms are or if it would be best done clockwise or anti. Where to start etc. Staggered starts perhaps, but that would mean individuals or groups all over the place. I feel that would take away from the enjoyment of it.
At a conservative estimate I would say 12 hours so an early start and a late finish would suggest mid summer to make for the long daylight hours.

I have mapped the route here:

www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=2772

After struggling for ages with a map of the route ( the most confusing map I have EVER seen.) I think it is pretty accurate but people with local knowledge might be able to update it if it is wrong, maybe even mark on cafes and tea rooms etc. There is a facility to add point of interest.

Not a trip to be undertaken lightly or without some good base fitness. Even over two days.

So if there is interest it might be worth organising.

 

[Calum]

Holy mother****ing shite, that looks tough!

I'm in no physical condition to attempt it at the moment, but come the summer I might be. Even if I felt very strong, then that would still be an extremely hard ride.

 

[ColinJ]

I rode out to Castleford on A-roads in 2006 and then came home on the southern half of the WYCR so I know what half of it plus the equivalent of the easy roads in the northern half amounts to.

I also know what the hilly bits of the northern half are like (we went over a few of those roads yesterday).

Yes, it would be a tough day out but I could see yesterday that you guys would be capable of doing it in a day if you tackled it properly (i.e. built up to it, ate and drank sensibly and didn't burn yourselves out riding too fast early on).

I think clockwise is the better way to do it, but there's not a lot in it.

If I was going to join you. I'd suggest starting from Mythomroyd, just down the road from me (on the grounds that I don't drive so it would be handy for me ). There is cheap, ample parking at the community centre there.

Clockwise from Mytholmroyd would give you something like Tough, Moderate, Easy, Moderate, Tough, Moderate riding in that order.

Yes, the map looks funny (the WYCR guide available from tourist information offices in West Yorkshire) but when you actually ride with it, you'll realise that is is done that way so that you can always have the map pointing in the direction of travel. Oh, thinking about it, that's another reason for a clockwise trip - otherwise the maps would be upside down!

The route is sign-posted, but in a few places the signs had been 'adjusted' to point the wrong way, or even removed entirely! If I did it again, I'd program it into my GPS to make navigation a breeze.

There are a few off-road sections which you might want to skip. Through the West Yorkshire sculpture park for example. They weren't too bad when I went, but if there had been a lot of rain, they could be a bit crappy for road bikes. It wouldn't be hard to circumvent them.

I might plot the profile of the route later on and add it below.

I definitely think you'd want a nice summer day for that ride. Hardcore audax riders might think nothing of doing it in bad conditions, but it would be grim!

 

[ColinJ]

Interesting... Colly - I downloaded your version of the route and looked at in Memory Map. It has the kind of little diversions and backtrackings that I see when I look at my Garmin tracklogs (where I take a wrong turn and go back). Did you actually ride the route or am I looking at little mistakes you made when plotting it ?

Also... I don't know how this happened, but in Memory Map, there is another route shown from Shadwell through the centre of Wakefield and rejoining the other route at Denby Dale - very confusing.

I'll double check the route against my WYCR map when I can remember where I put it.

 

[ColinJ]

Here's the WYCR profile.

Mytholmroyd is either end, and it goes clockwise round the route from left to right. I put the cursor was on the highest point of the route at 435 m, on Oxenhope Moor (the top of the first big hill we did yesterday, but note - the WYCR gets to it by a more interesting and strenuous route).

 

[Bokonon]

Easy stuff, should be able to do it all in a morning (starting just after midnight and keeping an over-all average speed of 14mph.)

I did a ride a couple of years ago following the route from Wetherby to Castleford but taking detours to avoid the off-road stuff. I think the detours I took added a few miles on to the route.

 

[colly]

No Colin I haven't ridden it, all that on the route posted is just off the map. I haven't any idea how it really is on the ground so to speak. I expect there will be a good few errors when it comes to the detail.
Such as that IMPOSSIBLE section in Hebden Bridge.

Most of the off road bits that I have ridden are cycle tracks so are ok to ride. No mud plugging etc. Thats only the bits near Wetherby and Leeds and down to Castleford mind you.

And that map? WTF! I can see the idea behind it but it's all over the place. The map I have is dated 2004 so maybe it's been updated.

 

[trio25]

This could be interesting...

 

[ColinJ]

This could be interesting...

Well, we've all got plenty of time to prepare ourselves!

Let's just hope we actually get a proper summer for it in 2009...





PS I just took a look at your blog - that looked interesting too, but I'm not so sure about the pink thing you have going on there - I find it a bit hard on my old eyes !

Hmm - not bad getting up Rooley Moor Road on your singlespeed bike. I've been up and down it a few times on my geared MTB. I did it on the Rossendale Mountain Bike challenge a few years back and was in hot pursuit of a mate when he hit a particularly big cobblestone at speed and snapped his seatpost, almost performing rectal surgery with the remains of it while performing an emergency stop. He managed to get what was left of the post out of the frame and reattached the saddle with the remaining stump of the post. He did the rest of the ride alternating between standing up and kneeing himself in the chest as he pedalled !

 

[colly]

Well, we've all got plenty of time to prepare ourselves!

Let's just hope we actually get a proper summer for it in 2009...





PS I just took a look at your blog - that looked interesting too, but I'm not so sure about the pink thing you have going on there - I find it a bit hard on my old eyes !

Hmm - not bad getting up Rooley Moor Road on your singlespeed bike. I've been up and down it a few times on my geared MTB. I did it on the Rossendale Mountain Bike challenge a few years back and was in hot pursuit of a mate when he hit a particularly big cobblestone at speed and snapped his seatpost, almost performing rectal surgery with the remains of it while performing an emergency stop. He managed to get what was left of the post out of the frame and reattached the saddle with the remaining stump of the post. He did the rest of the ride alternating between standing up and kneeing himself in the chest as he pedalled !

I wondered what you were going to say for a min.

 

[ColinJ]

I wondered what you were going to say for a min.

It was a pretty close thing! A second mate got a snakebite puncture immediately afterwards. Imagine Paris Roubaix cobbles down a 10% gradient and you'll have a feel for Rooley Moor Road a.k.a. the Cotton Famine Road. I was so intrigued by what a cobbled road was doing on top of the moor that I looked it up when I got home. The 'cotton famine' was mentioned on 'The Ascent of Money' last week.

 

[marinyork]

I've done a fair bit of the eastern part of that loop from Shadwell onwards. It's pretty flat which means unsurprisingly most of the 12000ft hills are concentrated in the west in few miles! Is it the same as the West Rose Cycling Route as I've seen quite a few signs for that.

 

[ColinJ]

I've done a fair bit of the eastern part of that loop from Shadwell onwards. It's pretty flat which means unsurprisingly most of the 12000ft hills are concentrated in the west in few miles! Is it the same as the West Rose Cycling Route as I've seen quite a few signs for that.

I think you mean the Sustrans White Rose Cycle Route don't you?

No, they are two different things. The WYCR signs have a white rose on them and the letters WYCR. Don't know about the White Rose route but I can see where the confusion arises!

I just found this blog entry which rather supports my comments about the bridleway through the Sculpture Park !

 

[marinyork]

Not entirely sure. The people I saw were on racers and went through bramham, over the roundabout and down towards Thorne exactly like that route does, there were signs not like sustrans ones at all with a white rose on where they turned off. They didn't really strike me as the sort that'd mess around on Sustrans routes.

 

[trio25]

Thanks, the pink is because I nearly always wear pink on my bike. Sounds like the sort of ride I would like!