Half-day, twenty-mile circuit of quiet lanes and bridleways through the delightful dry chalk valleys of the Yorkshire Wolds. Starts and finishes in Pocklington, a market town with cafes and pubs. It's on the hourly X46 bus (York-Pocklington-Market Weighton-Beverley-Hull) that takes bikes (two spaces, free).
The circuit goes past Millington Wood nature reserve (you can cycle the path through the wood: it's just northeast of Millington, off the hairpin bends). This is Millington Dale, one of the Wolds' showcase dry-valley lanes - flat, virtually car-free and sinuous, with sheep-rich green hills rising up on either side. It feels like some remarkable disused railway trail, though it's not: this is all the work of the Ice Age.
From Millington Dale comes the first of three lovely bridleways, peeling off left through a side valley. It's sometimes grassy and a little bumpy. There shouldn't be much mud though even in wet weather. They're called dry valleys for a reason.
The second bridleway cuts west off the lane down to a dale bottom where a footpath and bridleway cross rather dramatically. The Wolds Way long-distance footpath comes through here. At the bottom is an earthwork art piece, about the size of house foundations. It depicts in ridges and troughs the last swirls of meltwater from the glaciers that carved these now-riverless valleys several millennia ago.
After getting back on quiet lanes, the route passes a reservoir at the highest point in East Yorkshire (and the old East Riding): Garrowby Hill, Cot Nab, or Bishop Wilton Wold, depending on who you believe (respectively locals, the Guinness Book of Records, and geographers). A trig point in the reservoir marks the official height of 246m, but just to the east is a clump of trees whose tumulus is a metre or two higher. Neither of these is publicly accessible.
The route follows the horrible, busy A166 for a couple of hundred metres. It's downhill, but if the traffic is too daunting, there is a wide grass verge to push along. The reason for this unpleasant interlude is the third bridleway, through Givendale, past farmland and a scout hut: a more rolling and pastured face of the Wolds. Final quiet lanes get you back to Pocklington and your bus. There mught be time for a cake in one of the market street's cafes, or a pint in the Black Bull - whose beer garden round the back has plenty of space for your bike to lean against an outdoor table.
There's nothing technical about the surfaces of the bridleways, but you'll be most comfortable on a sturdy bike. A decent hybrid or tourer will be OK, and on a full-sus mountain bike you can float over it all. The climbs and descents, where they exist, are short and stiff; you may well push some of the ups. There's no hurry - the buses back to York or Beverley run till late.
More info and blog: https://e2e.bike/yorkshire-ridings/earth-works-the-art-of-wolds-bridleways/
