Recycled ride to Holme on Spalding Moor June 2nd 2017
Distance: <40 miles
Present: George, John, Alan, Helen
Low turnout this week, with a range of good reasons for people not turning up: Chris for example sailing on the Med; Dave growing his cruise belly on the Queen Mary;Trevor busy campaigning for the Labour Party, and Martin nursing his broken collar bone from last week’s ride. Half term for some meant grandparent duty, and the dull and unpromising weather forecast may have been a factor.
The four of us were approached at the Market Cross by a chap saying,” I just want to seek your opinion…” before expounding at length on his own. He’d had a recent run-in with a group of cyclists who’d ‘signalled that there were two of us in the car’ after he’d blared his horn. He’d also heard something on the radio about how riding abreast improved road safety. Alan gave him short shrift, muttering afterwards about, “Some bloke spotting a group of cyclists and thinking, ‘Hey, I’ll just go and have an argument’.”
I looked up the law on this and there isn’t one, although Rule 66 of the Highway Code advises against riding more than two abreast. However, Chris Boardman claims that riding two abreast makes it safer for a group of riders as drivers are forced to slow down, making it less dangerous than trying to snake past a group single-filing. Interesting, although I wouldn’t fancy my chances against the road rage we sometimes meet round here, seemingly just for having the cheek to be on a bike at all. I also discovered that although there is no law against cyclists speeding, there is a £1000 fine for something called “cycling furiously”. Which of course we did as we sped down Trundle Hill, Alan in the lead as usual.
Alan left us at South Newbald, having to be elsewhere, but not before fixing a problem on George’s bike, probably caused by his tumble on his last ride, and offering free technical support to anyone in the group. Much appreciated, though John did raise the issue of doing his Craig out of business as a mobile bike repair man. Indeed, we were soon to appreciate Craig’s expertise and good-humoured patience with us old fools…
Three of us carried on via Hotham where instead of our usual turn left we turned right to North Cliffe along quite a busy road. When we stopped at the junction to North Cliffe Woods, a YWT nature reserve, I was asked whether the slopes to our right were still the Wolds, which was an opportunity for me to witter about one of my favourite topics: rocks. We’re so lucky in Britain to have three billion years’ worth of geology to explore, ageing from east to west. Our ride today went from 12,000-year-old ice-age boulder clay in Beverley over the Cretaceous Chalk Wolds (up to 140 million years old) across a narrow Jurassic band (up to 200 million years old) from Newbald west to North Cliffe (so no, they aren’t the Wolds), then on to the Triassic sands and mudstones around Holme on Spalding Moor (about 250 million years old). It’s a mind-boggling scale, and puts us in our tiny place in the universe.
As we passed what I think was Woodlands Farm (‘Nature Conservation Area: Keep Out’) we noted the rhododendrons in full flower. These reflect the geology too as they are acid lovers, so won’t grow on the chalk. They’re a contentious plant. Beautiful the flowers may be, but like many other showy plants introduced by the Victorians, they’re an invasive species, causing problems in many parts of Scotland, Wales and southern England. Not only do they sucker freely and shade out the light for other species, they are toxic to herbivores so create a barren landscape where they take hold.
Humanity might be just a blink of the eye in the history of the planet but we don’t half interfere with nature.
The whole landscape around the weirdly surviving hill of Keuper Marl that is the old site of Holme on Spalding Moor is man-made, like everywhere in East Yorkshire. This used to be marshland. It is recorded that there was a cell for two monks south of the hill, one employed to guide travellers across the treacherous marshes, the other to pray for their souls. From the 18th century onwards the area’s been drained and is now rich farmland, as evidenced by some of the large buildings we passed, including one Victorian monster-mash of Gothic and fake Tudor. The village itself decamped down the hill, which made good sense to us as we slogged up it.
We stopped for a rest and the view from the 13th century All Saints Church, which at one time was a guide for these lonely travellers struggling through mists and ‘trackless morass’. Sadly, it was locked. There is a stained-glass window in there to the airmen from the nearby bomber base, several of whom, as young as 19, are buried in the vast churchyard. The inscription on the glass reads ‘To see the dawn breaking safely Holme”.
John was frustrated in his search for a gravestone he’d been shown on a guided walk, which had an un-Christian verse about an unappreciated wife. None of the people tending the churchyard knew of it. Something for next time.
Soon we were off to our feed station at Café 34 in Market Weighton. Here we were not only greeted with a smile but the loan of a bike lock. The food was lovely and all home-made, and we reflected how Dave, had we been successful in distracting him from the four local chippies, would have loved it. John has been following Dave’s giant American burger photos on Facebook and is gleefully expecting some weight gain. We liked the haphazard furniture and bric a brac and the background music of Doris Day (“Your era, George?” quipped John).
However, the journey home was disrupted by a slow puncture on George’s bike. I was a poor leader as I wasn’t equipped with a repair kit and John struggled to fit his pump on George’s bike. Out came the mobile phone and John took instructions from Craig, who had been prepared to come out and rescue us with his I told him to bill his Dad for the phone advice and off we set, with a few pump-up stops for George until we got to just past Etton, when he finally gave up and walked home.
The weather had held and it was great to try another new route.
HK
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