Malham Tarn in the distance - and this parking angle was OK

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This 25 miles circular ride takes in some marvellous scenery and it is not a difficult ride, although there are a couple of fairly tight climbing bends which call for a bit of concentration.

I did it part of this ride a week earlier in company with some IAM rider friends I bumped into at Settle and it was such attractive scenery I couldn’t resist going back with my camera.

From the Market Square in Settle, where the excellent Naked Man Cafe will provide any sustenance you might need before setting off, head North past the car park and petrol station and under the railway arch.  After half a mile or so turn right along the B6479 (signposted Horton in Ribblesdale) and then after less than a mile turn right again on the unclassified road signposted (not very conspicuously) Malham.

The high ground above Langcliffe

This takes you North East through the hamlet of Langcliffe, which  is fairly level to start with, then up a fairly steep and twisty road up the hillside – on which there are a few nice slow bends including a climbing left hander which is tight enough to focus the mind.

The roads on this route are mostly fairly narrow and there are lots of places where you don’t have a clear view of what might be around the next bend, so you do have to cater for the possibility of oncoming traffic – it’s a route which other people may well be driving to enjoy the scenery on a nice evening, same as you are.  But apart from the one climbing bend leaving Langcliffe, this is not a difficult route to ride on a GoldWing.

Big lamb, shorn sheep

You do of  course have to beware of sheep because once you are across the cattle grids there are plenty about.  Although giving the appearance of being well used to tourist traffic and therefore mostly inclined to ignore you, sheep are capable of remarkable suicidal urges, especially the young ones, bolting across the road to join Mum, so you do need to proceed with considerable caution.  On the July evening I was riding this route the ewes had just been shorn and the lambs, several months old by then, had grown a thick coat; it took me a while to work out which was which.

Looking north east towards Malham Tarn

In no time at all you have climbed out of the valley and you are riding parallel to it along the high ground above, with a really spectacular view westwards towards Ingleborough Hill (2373 feet) across the valley.  This is the valley (it might be a Dale, this is Yorkshire)  up which the Settle to Carlisle railway line, the prettiest in England, climbs towards the Ribblehead Viaduct, which is the longest in England, so it’s quite a place.  From the east-side tops you get a terrific view of the distinctly craggy  limestone western side.  In the evening sun it was really quite dramatic stuff and I was so entralled I forgot to satop and take a picture.

The road towards Arncliffe

As you turn away from this Valley to the East and over  Henside Tops, Malham Tarn appears in the distance looking as pretty as a picture.  In winter it will often be a bit bleak up here but on a Summer evening with the sun throwing spectacular shadows across the landscape it’s picture-postcard stuff all the way.  Once I realised I hadn;t stopped for picture I couldn’t resist stopping several times.

Heading for Arncliffe

I bought a special camera bag for my DSL camera which works a bit like a gun holster, the idea being that it would sit comfortably on my right thigh whilst riding.  My wife thought it was a silly idea and worried that it would cause injury to me if I fell off the bike, so although I had had it for some months, this was the first time I had strapped in on holster-style – and I wasn’t brave enough to do that until I stopped for my first photo and realised this ride was the perfect opportunity to try it out.   I suppose it could be a lumpy handicap if you found yourself rolling down the tarmac, but that aside it was a great success.  I could stop and take a picture very easily and it was certainly a lot more secure and comfortable than riding with a DSL dangling around your neck.

Descent toowards Arncliffe

Before you reach Malham Tarn the route forks left (signposted Arncliffe) along another very narrow, i.e. single track road.  But it has a reasonable tarmac surface and presents no difficulties to a Wing.   There are several quite marked changes of scenery along this section; it’s a very pretty road to ride.

There is aslo a fairly steep climb over a spur before you drop down again to approach Arncliffe and this has another couple of climbing turns – not seriously difficult ones but tight enough to force you to remember to look where you want the bike to go as you go round them.

At Arncliffe you ride through the village and then there is a T junction and when I rode with friends we turned right towards Hawkswick and beyond, as part of a full day’s ride.  But this time I was only out for an evening, so I turned left, up Littondale, towards Halton Gill. Another change of scenery as I rode up this lovely valley through the village of Litton, after which of course it’s named, to what turns out to be the tiny settlement of Halton Gill.  There are a couple of houses and a Bunk Barn and that’s about it.

Arncliffe Cote

No traffic up here of course, so my engine was making the only sound competing with the guitar which someone was playing outside the Bunk Barn, while his friend listened, sipping a beer.  They both looked up as I passed and although they must heard the sound of the engine in that quiet and peaceful place, I hope it was the visual impact of the bike that kept their eyes on me all the way.  If you want some real peace and quite to enjoy with a bunch of friends, this Bunk Bern offers plenty of it.  I felt I was intruding on their peace, even on a Wing.  Imagine the look I would have got if I had been on a Harley.

Littondale

I took another left turn at Halton Gill, heading back towards Settle up the steep side valley which shoulders Pen-y-Ghent Hill (2231 feet) which always strikes me as a hill which, with a name like that, ought to be somewhere else, like Wales.  There was no real alternative to turning left here, the road up the valley above Halton Gill is a dead end.

Feeling the need for a photo of Halton Gill, I pulled over to the side of the road, which was how I got myself into one of those little difficulties I seem to create for myself these days.  It was a steepish hill but the real problem was the camber; even though I adjusted position of the bike before dropping it carefully on to the side stand, making sure the side stand would be on solid tarmac, the bike went a long, long way over. The grassy moorland verge fell away from the roadside too, so the overall effect, as I discovered trying to dismount, was that it was very difficult to get off  – I more or less fell off, wincing as my dodgy hip objected to the manoeuvre.  It was going to be difficult getting back on.

Looking back towards Halton Gill - and the steep angle of lean

So I took my picture, admired the scenery, thought about “easing springs” as we used to say in the Navy but decided I was still too much in the view of the Bunk Barn.  So it was time to approach the problem of remounting, which would have been difficult even without a full bladder.  Getting astride the bike again turned out to be achievable;  it wasn’t quick or stylish, but I managed to get back on board the bike without too much difficulty.

Those of us who have dropped our GoldWings when nearly stationary, foot or feet down, will know that there is an angle of lean beyond which the bike suddenly gets very much heavier to pull back upright and eventually impossible, so there is no option but to get it go down.  All you can do is break its fall.  The angle of lean at which I had parked my bike turned out to be just about there. The side stand was only just on the tarmac and the grassy verge slopped away. As I tried to pull the bike up I realised straight away that I was in trouble; it wouldn’t budge; I just didn’t have the leverage.

I spotted a lumpy bit of verge which I could put my left foot on to gain an inch or so of height and tried again.  I might just have had the leverage this time but I found I didn’t have the stregnth.  As Bill and I have taken to saying to each other these days, it’s a bugger getting old.

It passed through my mind that in this isolated place my mobile phone probably wouldn’t work and even if it did, could I really ring up a breakdown service to ask them to come and help me get my bike off its side stand?  Having felt rather smug about cruising smoothly past the two guys outside the Bunk Barn in magnificent Wingly style, I didn’t fancy walking down the hill to ask them for that sort of help either.  I decided to have one more go.

With the help of the grassy mound and a really sustained heave, I got the bike to start lifting.  The heaviness diminishes as the angle of dangle reduces (or whatever it was they taught me about moments of force in physics all those years ago) so once the bike had started lifting, thankfully it got easier.  I had discovered that if it looks like it’s too steep a camber and too sloping a verge to park safely, it probably is.  I made a careful hill start and went on my way.  Happily after all that straining, my bladder was still full too;  it’s a bugger getting old.

Stainforth Foss

The descent back towards Settle is via a village called Stainforth, which held childhood memories for me as a place where we used to visit my uncle in his caravan by the riverside, where there was, and still is, an unusual set of three waterfalls called, long before Starwars was thought of, “the Force”.  Or at least that was what we called it as children.  I suppose we had misunderstood; its proper name is Stainforth Foss.

A shallow, rippling river flows towards a narrowing rocky shelf to form a powerful waterfall and then another and another.  The first one drops only a few feet into a shallow pool but the second drops further and maybe on to softer rock because it has formed a deep pool, perhaps as much as ten feet deep, the water spilling over its brim to form the third and final waterfall.  This time it drops over a much higher shelf and into a much bigger and even deeper pool.  It was a children’s dream of a playground and we paddled in the shallows, swam in the first pool, duck dived to try to reach the bottom of the second and were too frightened to dive over the waterfall into the third.  The big boys did that – and swung out on a rope from an overhanging tree to splash into the middle of the pool.

On this evening ride I made no attempt to find it, although I think I did see the small side turning which leads down a really narrow and steep road to the bridge which crosses the river just above my childhood playground.  This could be a challenging route to take on a GoldWing; I’ve yet to try it.

So I rode down through Stainforth village on to the main valley road and back into Settle.  The Naked Man Cafe was closed but the Fish & Chip Shop was open.  I resisted the temptation without difficulty because my ride home from Settle, about thirty miles, is a favourite, with some really nice bends, even though the principal section is called, crudely but not without justification, Cowshit Alley.

Settle is a popular calling place for bikers and not only because it has a cafe with an intriguing name.  It’s got lots of cafes; it’s a nice little market town and there is usually plenty of room to park a GoldWing in the Market Square or outside the Town Hall, on the No Parking bit which all the bikers ignore. And if you are in that area with an hour or so to spare, you could do worse than ride past Malham Tarn, Arncliffe and Halton Gill, not to mention Stainforth Foss.

A postscript, written on August 18th: I rode this circuit again last weekend leading a pair of GoldWings.  We were staying at Kirkby Lonsdale with GoldWings North West and determined to have a ride out in spite of the blustery and showery weather, so off we went.

The ride to Settle along the A65 was pleasant enough on drying roads but as soon as we got above Langcliffe on to the high ground the weather took a distinct turn for the worse.  It wasn’t too bad across towards Arncliffe but as we turned for home at Halton Gill the wind and rain really picked up and it became one of those days when you ask yourself why you set off at all. This route is excellent on a nice day but in marginal weather, even in Summer, better stick to the valleys.

We got back in one piece and just in time for the weather to start making a spectacular improvement.  The marquee had nearly taken off and self-destructed during the afternoon while we were working hard to keep our bikes on the road in the squalls.  But a couple of hours later we were able to enjoy our barbeque in warm sunshine and clear skies.  Once darkness fell we had a spectacular view of the night sky, complete with shooting stars.  We even had an amateur astronomer to tell us what we were looking at.  Away from the light levels of a twon, which on the Rugby Ground we were, makes a huge difference.  The mixed joys of a British Summer; who would want to live anywhere else.

If you would like to read a report on the Kirkby Lonsdale Weekend, please visit the GoldWings North West Website.