The route in question was a Yorkshire Dales route I rode with Angie (my wife and preferred pillion). The idea was to have a lovely ride and then stay away overnight somewhere nice. It wasn't meant to be an exploration ride because I knew exactly what I wanted to do so we wouldn't be on the bike for longer than an hour at a time, it being the depth of winter and all. Fortunately, it didn't work out like that.
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The above map shows the route we took (you may need to zoom it in or out a bit to see the whole thing). Where we deviated from what we were meant to be doing was just after Grassington where I turned left early from the main road. It became clear that I'd gone wrong when I realized the river, which should have been on our right, was in fact on our left. With hind sight, it was in actually a different river but they shared many qualities so were hard to distinguish. Eventually I stopped in village called Arncliffe to look at the map and have a coffee from the flask. The map showed a road over the moor past Malham Tarn which would put us on another road we already know and love. With a few chevrons showing steep slopes and a tendency for the line to wiggle, it looked promising.
As it turned out, that high road was a real gem and I'll have to go back there again. I love those narrow, steep, winding and deserted roads with endless views over the dales. They are toe-numbingly cold in February and there were patches of ice to watch out for but the air was clear. Patches of snow on the ground made it all the moor beautiful. Thankfully, the helmet cam was running for most of it and when I got home I used the iPad to edit the footage for the first time. Here are the best seven minutes of the trip.
There I will leave it. As usual, it's nowhere near as short as it was supposed to be. Oh well.
