PAUL KIRKWOOD takes the high road to Hambleton Street and enjoys some stunning views across the moors

WHEN is a street not a street? When it's Hambleton Street, the right of way along the top of the escarpment running north from above Boltby in the North Yorkshire Moors.

The track is described as a "byway open to all traffic", but I certainly wouldn't want to take my car down it. The surface varies from a stony path to a rutted lane to a broad carpet of grass, all of it passable on a touring bike with the exception of 100 yards or so towards the end.

The first section of my route followed the Boltby Forest mountain bike trail. When the trail turned left, though, I kept straight on. At a gate into a corner of the forest I came across three soldiers, one of them surveying the region through binoculars while standing on the bonnet of a Landrover. What could he see? Nothing more than endless bracken, I'd have thought.

As I emerged from the forest, all I could hear in the stillness was the constant squelch of my tyres churning through mud and the lazy hum of a plane which I assumed had just set free from one of the gliders that fly off Sutton Bank.

Soon I was propping up myself and the bike against a dry-stone wall to enjoy the fine views over the plain which had opened up to the west. The extra effort of cycling off-road was, however, beginning to take its toll and I was glad when Osmotherley came within my sight, far below a motorised hang glider.

After hurtling down a stony track, I took a break overlooking a reservoir. I had only completed six and a half miles but it felt like much more. If you try this route and fancy a halfway house I recommend the Chequers tea rooms a short distance down the road.

Rather than continue down to the village I turned right and followed the minor road all the way back. The flanks of Arden Great Moor form a dark curtain on the right at the end of which are the unmistakable Hawnby and Easterside Hills looking like upturned fishing boats. I was heading in between them - but not after a considerable number of ups and downs.

At the end of my first push I came across what I thought was a bus shelter built into the hillside, but was actually a lime kiln. Found on many farms around 200 years ago, they were used to reduce stone to a pure form to use as fertiliser. At the end of another descent and hairpin bend there was a hidden waterfall that came right up to the side of the road. On entering Hawnby I turned right and then almost immediately left, opposite an ornate, Tudor-style wooden construction. This time my guess was right: it was a bus shelter.

After crossing a bridge over the Rye, I started the toil that led me up and out of the basin. Pausing for a much-needed breather I looked back to see the lower half of Hawnby, directly above it the upper half and, above that, the summit of Hawnby Hill. Such vertical alignment seemed alpine - in common with my ascent. I should've taken more notice of those little black arrows on the map, or perhaps have ridden the route the other way round I thought to myself.

At five o'clock nearing the small wood where I had left the car, the red disc of the setting sun flickered in between the bare trunks and branches of the trees. Old snow had survived another day in the hollows beside the road. Spring is on its way but won't be here for a while yet.

Fact file

Total distance: 16 miles.

Time: Allow three hours plus rest stops.

This is a strenuous ride.

Click here to view a map of the ride

Updated: 09:36 Saturday, March 02, 2002