Gorge-us

This ride starts in Rawcliffe - not the York suburb but the Moorland village of Newton-upon-Rawcliffe, near Pickering. I set off from the village at its northern end and followed the signs to Stape.

This is a lonely place with buildings shy of one another and spaced well apart, typical of Scottish Highland villages. The village hall and old board school looked unused, two chapels had been converted into homes and the Old Stape Inn is also a private house.

I wondered exactly who these buildings had been built for all those years ago. I proceeded north to enter the North Riding Forest Park and soon took a right turn down the Newtondale Forest Drive, a well surfaced, broad toll road through the plantation.

Cycling with next to no traffic is always a treat but after a while I tired of trees and was delighted when, around a corner, a fine view of Newtondale gorge came into view.

A sneak preview of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway is just visible over the tops of the Christmas trees. Prominent on the other side of the railway line are the ruins of Skelton Tower, a castellated, two-storey former hunting lodge built in 1819 by the vicar of Levisham, Robert Skelton.

Some say he wrote his sermons here, others imply he escaped here for a quiet drink! After Raper's Farm, the road was Tarmac-ed, which assisted my freewheel down to the bottom.

Such a scenic road but so few people. Where was everyone?

At Levisham station, it seemed. I inadvertently timed my arrival to perfection - just minutes before trains were due from both directions. The place was packed with excited photographers taking up their positions and I soon became one of them. As the trains arrived, the romantic atmosphere was momentarily broken when I spotted some of those Seventies-style, turquoise British Rail carriages in between the Pullmans. I wondered if I peered through all the steam long enough the Railway Children's father would appear like he did in the film. The station has been a bit of a film star itself over the years having appeared in Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, All Creatures Great and Small and Brideshead Revisited.

At this point on my original recce of this route I chose a bridleway directly back to Newton-upon-Rawcliffe. Big mistake.

It was a lung-busting uphill heave-ho in thick mud. You could always return the way you came but I recommend another route which I explored on a return trip.

Crossing over the railway I looked up a hill as smooth as a sand dune and just as tiring to scale. It was very much the shape of things to come.

The pretty village of Levisham helped take my mind off all the hard work. It's laid out like a dinner table. The village green that runs the length of the sole street is the table cloth at which houses are neatly seated, each with plenty of elbow room. At the head of the table sits the 16th century Horseshoe Inn.

Just after plunging downhill and starting a steep climb towards Lockton I turned right down a track called Sleights Road. The tower of a church poked its head over the tree tops and soon I was enveloped in a valley, the trees on the opposite bank forming a wallpaper of autumn colours. The stillness made sounds more noticeable.

The eerie, echoey whistling of out-of-sight trains was replaced by the trickling of a stream busying itself down below and then by the thundering of hooves as three horses accelerated away from me. Incidentally, if you can get yourself a horse and cart for this section of the route then do. The track is heavily rutted and muddy in places. Only venture down it on a mountain bike and on one that's light enough to carry occasionally.

Eventually, I passed through a farm and crossed the railway line. On the other side I found a ford which was ideal for washing the bike and taking a breather. In front of me as I rested was Farwath, a row of typical railway cottages from the last century.

In the past, special market day trains stopped here and at other isolated cottages to take goods or shoppers to Pickering market.

In recent years, trains have provided an emergency service when snow has blocked the difficult roads and tracks in this part of the Moors.The good news at this point is that the track up the other side of the valley is well surfaced. The bad news is that it's uphill again. At the top, turn right down East Brow Road - Tarmac - and finally back again to your car.

Back in Newton-upon-Rawcliffe there was the suitably-named Muddy Duck pub for me and the real-life equivalent beside the pond for my daughter. Just as we were leaving, the teashop put out a sign reading: Now baking: Yorkshire Rascals.

Just the treat we deserve, I thought, but on inquiring I was told they had only just come out of the freezer.

Drat! So much for rural traditions.Rascals, indeed.

Distance: 15 miles.

Time: Three hours - allow lots of stops, this is a strenuous ride.

Click here to view a map of the ride