This was just a little weekend tour in the North York Moors; me and mini2 on our off road unicycles. Chunky-tyred disc braked things which allow you to do easy mountain biking trails, but make them difficult again. I originally bought one as a sort of mid-life crisis sports car substitute, but mini2 got the hang of it also and wanted to do some touring. So it's more of a wholesome family bonding exercise than riding off into the sunset in the sports car!
Mid-life crisis vehicle:
IMG_20230731_063009 by
Tom, on Flickr
We've previously done a couple of trips in East Anglia, but wanted to be a bit more adventurous and fitted this in with the rest of the family too, some of whom seem bizarrely averse to learning to ride a unicycle. So we arranged a dropoff near Ingleby Incline and overnight stopover in Danby. No, we Did Not ride up the incline - we were never going to, but there was a "team walkers" decision that they wanted to start from Clay bank instead.
We walked up the hill from there and got riding properly on the old railway to the Lion Inn. Covered the miles pretty easily on there, as you'd hope. Busy at the start, then quiet in the middle where you're miles from anywhere, and then picked up with more walkers again once we were in sight of the pub.
MoorsRideMap by
Tom, on Flickr
Continued on the railway line east from the Lion. I had a memory that this was technically footpath, and we might need to avoid being spotted, but actually the surface seems to have been upgraded and there were quite a few families both on bike and foot. Don't know if there has been a little improvement project I hadn't heard about? Anyway, after that it was straight north up the hill (most definitely walking) then cruise down the quiet road into Danby.
Next day we sort of crossed back over our route via Baysdale, and then down Rudland Rigg, to get picked up approaching Kirkbymoorside. You can see how direct this was on the map.
I did know the Baysdale route, but mis-remembered how tricky the bridleway was after leaving the road from Castleton. So we walked quite a bit of that. Then there was a big hill. So we walked that. Then we hit the top, with some wind and Rudland Rigg. I've not done that track before, and was looking forward to finding out how it was. The answer is "not bad", but since it's also accessible to 4x4s, it's been extensively repaired with quite coarse stone - think 5-10 cm lumps, and irregular. I don't know if you've ever tried to ride a muni across loose coarse stone in a strong wind, but turns out it's quite tricky.
Me on a better bit in Danby (apologies for missing head; slight mis-shot):
IMG_20230731_110424 by
Tom, on Flickr
Overall, this worked out a bit harder than I intended. Covered ~58km in total over two days. A combination of tricky surfaces, gusty wind and not much practice meant we walked a lot of the second day. But it was fun, and it finished with decent riding on a downhill, and that always helps!
