Wall to wall sunshine forecast today, so was out just after 9 am for a bit of new ground on the hybrid.
It was nice to have a few less layers on than usual, and I only put my mid weight gloves on rather than the full on winter ones. It was still a little chilly straight out of the door, but I soon warmed up.
The Wyke Beck Way (WBW) is a purpose built cycleway linking Roundhay Park and Temple Newsam, mainly off road, roughly following the route of Wyke beck, and it's been my intention to cycle it for a while. Plus after yesterdays efforts it forms a nice arc never than 3 or so miles from home, with a couple of easy get outs if the legs started to struggle...
Local roads to start with, then across the Ring Road and down through the top part of Seacroft into the mist and on to Wetherby Road where I was to join the route (officially it starts at Tropical World at the other side of Roundhay Park, but I wasn't traipsing all the way up there just to retrace my steps).
Notice how clean the bike looks? That wouldn't last!
I presume the artwork depicts Beryl Burton and Nicola Adams, but I didn't read the sign, sorry...
There is a sign stating this is NCN R677, but I don't recall seeing another NCN sign at all on this route, just blue signs marked either TN or RP depending which way you're heading.
Anyhow, back on the bike and squeezed through the first A frame gate of the day (there were to be lots
) and on my way.
I used to walk this way to school back in the early 80's and have memories of lots of mud at this time of year, but it's all hard standing now making for easy riding. There's a proper bridge to cross the beck too, rather than having to balance across an iron pipe.
This part is pretty idyllic really and was very quiet, with just a couple of dog walkers through the wooded section down to Easterly Road. Over the dual carriageway and on the cycleway across Arthur's Rein, still alongside the beck and down to the end of North Parkway. There used to be a bridge over the beck here (not any more) so I was surprised to see we continued on the same side past the school and then a short stretch of tarmac road behind the houses and down to the flats, before crossing the bridge onto Fearnville Fields here. Past the sports fields and across the road, then a short stretch down to Foundry Lane, with the WBW then climbing up to curve around the hill side, eventually bringing you to the lower edge of the Killingbeck Office Park. It looks like the route should continue straight on here, but there is a very clear diversion as a compound has been set up for the workers on the Cycle Super Highway on York Road.
Through the Office Park and directed onto the access road for Asda, with signs that direct you straight across the A64 and up Sutton Approach.
Well you would if the traffic lights across the dual carriageway detected bikes...I think I'd still be sat there if a car hadn't come along
Up the hill and straight on across the railway bridge into Primrose Valley on a meandering path that eventually brought me out half way up Selby Road. Across there and into the Halton Moor Estate where things started to deteriorate. Firstly, it isn't the most salubrious of areas (although early-ish on a Sunday morning no-one was about - summer afternoons might be a very different story), secondly, this section is all on road and thirdly, you really have to keep your wits about you to spot the small route signs. Anyhow, successfully navigated it was off road onto what was probably once a tarmac route round the rear of the flats, but could now best be described as 'mixed' surface, turning right just before the burnt out car to ride between fields before cutting between the woods and Pontefract Lane.
There is a sign post here with both the TN and RP signs pointing the same way...
The surface was deteriorating further here and although still quite rideable the earlier good quality tarmac was now just a memory.
The route then stops suddenly at a barrier on the edge of the golf course with a TN sign. Lots of people have taken a plunge down the side of the barrier here looking at the tyre marks in the mud, but you're still a good way from the end of the route with no more further signs (I think you'd follow the obvious route across the golf course for the most direct way to the house).
There were some yellow signs with a picture of a bike for the "Temple Newsam Trailway", so I followed these off to the right. Good job I was on the hybrid...
I'd stumbled upon a great route through the woods, but you certainly wouldn't want to take a road bike down there, muddy in lots of places and with a couple of quite rough sections and even a banked bit.
Eventually this brought me out onto an access road running parallel to the M1. No signs (again) so I followed my nose up the hill, then down the other side, where there was a bridleway sign to Temple Newsam. This was actually another tarmac access road, up the biggest hill of the day
which eventually brought me out at the side of Temple Newsam House (again, no signs suggesting a bike route). But what the heck, I was having fun.
Time for a drink and a photo:
I was surprised to find no ice cream van here either
(there always used to be 2 or 3 here back in the day...) so I set off again heading for Colton on R66.
My legs felt good, the weather was fine and I was in no rush so I pushed on over now familiar ground, up to Thorp Park and through the gypsy encampment that's sprung up since last week, then the bridleway over the M1 and down through the woods to Garforth, under the railway bridge then back up Nanny Goat Lane and the (still muddy) bridleway back down to Manston Lane, through Pendas Fields and up to home.
16.55 miles in
1 hr 34 m at an average of
10.6mph and with 915 ft climbed.
In all good fun although I don't know that I'd repeat the full route again. The first section of the WBW is decent enough, as is the ride around the fringes of the Temple Newsam estate once you'd figured out the sparse directions, but the middle bit isn't somewhere I'd generally choose to ride, particularly at different times of the day, which is a shame as this could be a great local resource.
Perhaps it's telling that apart from a young lad being taught to ride by his dad on the section just after Easterly Road, I didn't see a single other cyclist
anywhere on the whole WBW?
That said, I was out on the bike in the sunshine, so it's not a bad use of the time is it?
)
