- Nearest station: Garforth
- Guidebook: West Yorkshire Mountain Biking (Benjamin Haworth) : Routes 22 & 23
- Trails: Natural, easy
- Other attractions: Wildlife (red kites)
I’ve done this route a couple of times, most recently last year. It’s a combination of a couple of rides taken from the guidebook (so I won’t show the exact route here). These are easy trails, most of which could be ridden on a cyclocross bike or a hybrid, though one singletrack section – Brandon Lane, near Wike – has a rocky descent that may come as a surprise in an otherwise non-technical ride. This being a retrospective, rather than an account of a recent ride, I wasn’t planning this article when I rode it, so I don’t have a lot of photos.
From Garforth, a couple of kilometres of road riding takes you to the route proper, starting with an easy bridleway across a golf course (look out for stray balls). Another road section takes you to the A64 (busy at times), and towards the northern (and more interesting) half of the ride. The welcome end of this main road section comes a little after the Red Bus Cafe, beside Saw Wood, which is a decent place for a break when it’s open.
Following the bridleway through Saw Wood, you end up in the village of Thorner. Between here and Brandon Lodge, keep an eye out for red kites. These once-rare birds are a regular site around here, and they can be seen pretty close-up if you’re lucky (but don’t crash; they’re carrion feeders…).
After Brandon Lane, with its short but entertaining rocky descent, more roads and farm tracks take you to Bardsey and on to Wothersome, which can be used as an alternative starting point for this ride if you’re coming from York or Tadcaster (riding from York makes it quite a long trip – 100Km if you add a few detours on the way back – and adds a lot of flat, steady road work). From there, muddy bridleways lead back to the main road, past Bramham Park and its woods.
From here, it’s fairly plain sailing to Aberford, then back to the start of the ride, via the manky tunnel in Parlington Woods (it’s worth having a light for this bit, whatever time of day it is). At least, that’s how it goes if your freehub hasn’t failed near Wothersome, as mind did last time – cue much pushing and rolling, along a direct route via Barwick rather than Aberford.
If the weather’s decent, this ride is a pleasure. It’s not a technical challenge, more of a nice day out, and you can ride it on pretty much anything with knobbly tyres.