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Watched a couple of vids and looked at the route - anyone done it all?
While I've a gravel bike, from what I've seen I think my HT would be better.
I am though 50/50 on whether to camp or B&B - camping is more flexible, but looking at the route there's a lot of climbing, especially early on and a less loaded bike would be nicer.
Thinking for the Spring, any tips?
I did sections of it during my GB Divide-ish route up to Scotland. Mostly rocks and gates as I remember. I was using a rigid mtb fully loaded and it wasn’t a lot of fun. Would be more so unladen and with front suspension at least. Doesn’t help with the gates though.
Hi, did it earlier this year. A couple of pointers;
Deffo N to S.
Loads and loads and loads of gates. We counted and I think it was around 1 per KM !
Did it on a rigid bikepacking bike, which seemed about right to me, a little slower on the downs, but I was glad of it on the many many climbs.
We rough camped, but there are plenty of camp sites. I'd really recommend the Bulls Head at Tintwistle, good beer, a FANTASTIC steak and kidney pudding and they were more than happy for us to kip down in the pub garden (which was a fantastic camping spot in itself)
APF
Thanks both.
Deffo N to S.
Hmm, I was looking at S to N purely from a prevailing wind perspective, and as I live the Borders I'd aim to continue and ride home - what was the reason for recommending N to S?
N-S on the Yorkshire Dales section involves less pushing. I tend to go via Hawes rather than up the Coal Road from Garsdale.
But prevailing wind will always trump that consideration.
I did s to n over 4 days, bike packing. Very up and down, lots of climbing.
I found the first bit a bit dull, cycling up nice off road tracks just to come down tarmac. Maybe n to s would be better?
From Hebden Bridge it got better apart from the grassy bridleways before settle. They just seemed slow, hard work and the quiet nearby roads were calling.
Settle to Kirkby Stephen is great, fairly remote so stock up.
Loads of places to wild camp and loads of campsites on route.
N - S ?
There wasn't one climb that I thought "this should be a descent", conversely for a lot of the descents I was thinking "glad I didn't have to climb this"
APF
Thanks, but you're not selling it to me...
Not done the southernmost part, but from Denshaw to Kirkby Stephen I know it quite well. If you stick religiously to it, it can get pretty laborious, with poor sections of bridleway or track just to avoid a couple of miles of road and yes there are a few gates! If you use it as an idea to tailor to a route suited to your riding style then its great, and it crosses a wide variety of landscape, from limestone uplands, leafy valleys, to gritstone edges above the sprawl of Manchester.
There are plenty of options to make it more direct, add short bits of road to speed things up or weave about adding nicer trails, taking higher level options - study the 1.25000 maps and strava heatmap.
Its well worth avoiding the bit from Barnoldswick to Long Preston by taking the canal towpath to Gargrave, then the bridleway to Bell Busk and the track over Hellifield Moor to Scalebar Force. From Horton the Cam Road to Hawes is an alternative to the Coal Road/Galloway Gate bit above Dentdale. Plenty of rough camping or bivvying options, above Hebden Bridge you can camp at Mays Shop, pub half a mile away, Horton or Hawes are also good stopping points. You could also extent it to Appleby, over Dufton Fell by Alston to Haltwistle and home by Keilder to the Borders for an epic day??
The bit around Gizburn and Paythorne can be truely awful, using forced bridleways. Just do tarmac on quiet roads for a few miles. You'll smile instead of cry.
The above is fairly uncontroversial.
Possibly more controversial, I dislike the section around Hyde and Diggle, and so I devised my alternative PBW in the dark Peak. So up cut gate, fab descent down,Holme, Wessenden head. Marsden, then back on to the PBW. Much more engaging and fun IMO. Can supply a gpx on request.
Four of us completed the Settle to Glossop section this weekends. Two days of 44/40 miles, and we stuck to the route. Weather was pretty good for us but it would have been miserable if it was constantly raining. On the bikes, including lunch stop for about 8 hours a day. Average speed was about 6 mph.
So glad we didn't do it on cross bikes - some very rocky and loose descents, and tough climbs. The 'fields' near Settle were a drag - could have gone round them on the road, but stuck to it. There are a few 'pointless' sections that take you up then back down onto the same road, but hey ho we did it.
Two punctures, one snapped 12 speed chain, one GX Eagle suffering to get in the big sprocket (suspected grit and dirt getting on the limit stops), one instance of chain suck and a jammed chain (fixed in minutes), but we had a DNF around Milnrow - 12 Speed SLX mech sheered off after the 12 speed chain snapped again. Single speeded the bike and he took the roads back through Shaw, Oldham and Glossop - still arrived at the end about 2 hours before us, although 10 miles less,
If you are going to stick to the route, then I wouldn't do it on a cross bike. There are, however, other slightly different routes - we saw a load of gravel tracks that weren't on the official route which would probably have got you where you needed to be, and if you cut out the field crossings and pointless diversions, all the better