Sand Stone Way

[Single Speed George]

some easy options some hard options 115 miles 27.5 hours a little bit of sleep north bound

ok so the sand stone way in 5 points would be
- hilly , lots of little hills that make it feel like your never really getting anywhere
- gates so many gates the type that are hard to open and close
- options plenty of good route options specific for each direction and the kind of bike you are on cx or mountain bike and well way marked on some tracks and an ok map
- Roman roads ar straight and boring
- the kind of mud that sticks to everything and makes progress hard

so i set off on Saturday morning from Hexam some ok cycling up to the Roman wall on a variety of green lanes and bridleways bits of bridle way that don't look like they get allot of use but well way marked anyway.



then some road but like nice green lane type stuff not too bad and through some forest and stuff, quite muddy and the gates are the anoying kind you need to lift and un hook stuff haha quite a nice mix of quiet roads and bridleways to bellingham but nothing that amazing




at belling ham there are 3 cafes and a bike shop cafes are all good according to the bike shop bloke i went to the one in the old train carriages where the carrot cake was epic... bike shop is ok too , guy is a bit too enthusiastic so only stop if u have a fair bit of time for chatting haha

from here i too one of the wazy marked short cuts as it was the recommend north bound route this goes through woodburn. then its mainly road pretty boring roads for a couple of miles to harwood forest. harwood forest is nice fast fier track. here i took a more off road route option that cuts from the hill in the centre of the forest down what was probably the onley really good decent of the ride to hepple whitefeild . down an excellent sandstone gravel bridleway through amazing purple heather beautiful riding. met a local who said this was much better than the decent to rothbury witch is apparently just fire road ..


so now lots more by way and bridleway to alnham . at this stage it was getting dark as i started up one of the harder options up on to the moorland hard work bits of estate road but quite allot of tussocky track free moorland in the dark and mist following my GPS haha till i bivid at an excellent bivi spot on the corner of a woodland at a stream crossing , the best water source i had found lucky as was running low and there isnt that much good looking water...




got going pretty early maybe 3 am due to not getting that much sleep in a thunder storm haha, due to the now verry wet moorland i took a bad weather escape and re joined the main trail at ingram from here i followed lots of road and by way in the dark till the sun came up around rossden , then cycled to wooler for about 6am


from wooler there is a big hill then some really nice riding through barley fields and all the way out to kylo wood where i wished i had packed my bouldering slipper but had forgoten them ah well one sport at a time ay ... any way from kylo it goes down hill and joins the coast near holey island , stopped before here at a cafe at beal i would recommend the breakfast here pretty big but not enough beans ! :( loads of other stuff though !

then along the pretty boring but verry pretty coastal by way to Berwick here it ends !






the end .. we it was ok had quite bad bum pain but ye it was an ok route not vaguely exciting but ok much tougher than it looks on a map , probably found it harder than the west highland way even with the hike a bike on loch lomond and the giant hills . as the small hills and continuous mud just take it out of you more and the windy rout makes it feel like you arnt making any progress but ye there you go !

[jamiep]

Thanks for posting. I had planned to do this as a oner sometime around the solstice but was injured and now the days are a fair bit shorter. Think I'll park it until next summer.....

Had originally considered to use my CX bike but looking at various people's photos a hardtail might be more fun/practical, yes? Difficult to tell as many photos are of folk kitted like stormtroppers but taking three days to do it.

[Single Speed George]

there was only one or 2 bits that i was happy that i was on my mtb not my cx bike tbh far more of the time i wanted my cx bike ! the bit down off the Forrest to hepple whitefeild was good on a mountain bike an some of the moorland above wooler was butif you stick to the main trail it was all erry cx able and would defiantly be faster.... just depend which route options you take along the way as there is a bit of choice..., though i do take my cx bike some pretty inappropriate places occasionally as we all do . but ye if i did it again would cx it probably save a couple of hours

[JohnClimber]

I rode it North to South this summer during my loop of Northumberland and really enjoyed it apart from the pedalling downhill into the rain and head wind parts.
You're right about the gate and I skipped a section that ran next to a quiet road, as I was fed up with then and the cow a& sheep sh!t all over the soaking wet grass.

One for the summer, if one this year ever turns up

[ZeroDarkBivi]

Sounds like an interesting route, George. Did your rear bag survive the trip? It looks very close to the tyre in some of those pics; I used to get a lot of rub on descents on my Ti hardtail, even though there was a decent but of clearance when static.

[Single Speed George]

Ye bag survived stays really solid , had it like that on th really rough decent in th dales a few weeks back and was ok then too! Lots of straps is th key !

[adjustablewench]

I did it in June and thought it was way easier than I'd expected. It's so hard to judge how hard something will be. It was very dry when I did it but the wind was relentless. I'd set of North bound from Hexham at 9 on Friday night. Made slow progress on the night - mainly as I was so knackered after a week at work and the driving up to the start. Felt better on the Saturday, I'd stopped to bivi at St cuthberts cave, but if I'd had a car waiting at Berwick I'd have just carried on. As I was getting the train back to Hexham I decided it would be better to bivi in the cave and shelter from the wind rather than finding somewhere to bivi on the coast. I got to Berwick at 10am on the Sunday

My pics are here https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 6d990e6d90

[Ray Young]

, I'd stopped to bivi at St cuthberts cave,

I have wanted to bivi there for ages, did you get disturbed by anyone or did you arrive late, leave early?

[whitestone]

Last minute* plans for the weekend mean we are heading up to do this starting tomorrow PM from Hexham. How easy is it to find the route out of Hexham? Also how well marked is the route in general?

*By last minute I mean my wife came home from work about an hour ago and decided we should do it given the fine forecast.

[JohnClimber]

, I'd stopped to bivi at St cuthberts cave,

I have wanted to bivi there for ages, did you get disturbed by anyone or did you arrive late, leave early?

I arrived there about 8pm Saturday June 12st (mid summers night) there was no one around but with very little wind the midges were unbearable, so I bivi'ed nearby on the edge of the woods where there was enough breeze to keep the midges away.
Bivi site - http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=40 ... 34736&lm=0

I rode off 12 hours later and no one was near me or near the cave in that time.

[adjustablewench]

I had arrived there quite early and spent a while cooking and relaxing before I got my gear out to sleep. The main reason I stopped there was to shelter from the wind, it didn't feel windy by the cave but there must have been enough to keep the midges away as they didn't make an appearance.

I thought it may be a haunt of local kids but I didn't see anyone. I think I was in my bed just after 9 and up around 6-7 ish. A great place to sleep

[whitestone]

Just got back. Did the route S-N with two bivvies. Left the car at Berwick railway station (£3.50 a day), got the train to Hexham and left Hexham about 1715 on Saturday and bivvied about sixteen Km short of Bellingham. Sunday was a long day, did the same descent through the heather that George shows in his shots, rode to Rothbury then over the top through more heather, cut the Alwinton loop out and bivvied again a few Km before Wooler. Didn't go in to Wooler this morning but did the northbound shortcut and got to Berwick at 1200.

Due to the short notice (Friday night), the map I ordered didn't arrive until after we'd left so we did the first half to Rothbury following a reversed GPX file on my Garmin 510 (the one without mapping!). The signage isn't that good for going S-N, some of the signs have been hidden by official road signs , others are non-existant or not helpful as they reverse the N-S route whereas the map recommends different loops on occasions. On occasions the route isn't well marked on the ground so we followed the "obvious" track only to discover we'd gone wrong and had to backtrack, when you looked back, the correct way was obvious if you were coming from the north. I think these sections are the new bits so aren't yet well used. If we'd had the map then we wouldn't have had any problems. We bought a copy in Rothbury and had a much easier time on the northern part except when we completely missed the BW that started at Prendwick Hall - just didn't see either the BW or Sandstone Way sign - by the time we realised we were so far past the junction that we rejoined at the earliest point.

Some good riding - the best riding was down from Simonside to the Coquet Valley then up from Rothbury and round the edge of the next fell. The riding round St Cuthbert's cave was also pleasant.

Generally very quiet - didn't see any other riders until Winter's Gibbet (what's a hangman's gibbet doing there? - Weird) and then only a few here and there, including a very large Italian who we passed in the forestry before Simonside and appeared as lost as we were.

Amazingly for a bank holiday weekend, we had NO rain at all for the entire ride Things have possibly dried out in the week since George did it, while we had the occasional boggy bit these weren't long sections, maybe ten metres at a time. A lot of foliage at the side of some parts of the route, i.e. nettles and thistles, I was wishing I'd brought some long trousers Might be better earlier in the year but then you wouldn't get the heather in bloom which was stunning.

We went S-N because the wind over the weekend was forecast as strong south to south westerlies but thinking about the climbs and descents I don't think I'd want to do it N-S.

I'll second what George says about the amount of beans in the breakfast from The Barn at Beal - I think they get ten portions out of a single tin!

[stucowp]

Strange you thought that Bob, as I thought when I did it I north to south i wouldn't want to do it south to north!

[ir_bandito]

Just noticed this thread.
I live in Hexham, so if you have any questions about the southern end of the route, fire away. I've only ridden it as far as Bellingham, and that was in winter when it was a bit sub standard. Plan on taking a cheeky mid-week day off when the wind is easterly, getting the train to Berwick and riding home in a one-er.

I also know Ted Liddle who designed the route, he's a bit of a local cycling legend, and has been very involved with Sustrans and IMBA over the years.
I know he's working on some more off-road alternatives on the SSW at the moment, aswell as developing a couple of other long-distance routes: Esk to Esk and the Dozen Dales.

[whitestone]

Finally got round to sorting the video of our trip on the Sandstone Way out - https://vimeo.com/138902033

[andibs]

Think you've just convinced me to have a crack at it. Nice one

Andy

[ootini]

Same here

[Single Speed George]

looks like you had nice weather compared to me haha, and a bit less night ridding looked good though ! i need to start doing some bike packing filming , as do lots of climbing films for people and other stuff for festival like KMF etc may be next years KMF project should be bike packing related lol

[whitestone]

looks like you had nice weather compared to me haha, and a bit less night ridding looked good though ! i need to start doing some bike packing filming , as do lots of climbing films for people and other stuff for festival like KMF etc may be next years KMF project should be bike packing related lol

Yes, not a drop of rain all weekend. When someone said it was a bank holiday I thought they were kidding Just luck, really especially as it was all very last minute.

No night riding as we didn't actually take *any* torches so it was a case of "It's getting dark, let's find somewhere to bivvy." Up and away as it got light. We weren't in a rush other than getting back to the car before the parking ticket ran out (had about 3hrs to spare) but it was nice to be more in tune with things than force our way along. The night's are starting to get quite long though and we didn't have quite enough whisky (or gas for the stove) for the second night

[Teetosugars]

So, Is this better North- South, or South - North?

Just plotting..

)

[Single Speed George]

i would think the way i did it south-north made quite allot of sense based on the riding i did...

[whitestone]

Although due to an error we missed one section of off-road out I don't think it would have had much bearing on my preference.

Going S-N we got relatively short climbs and long descents, the only climb that I think would be better as a descent would be the one heading out of Rothbury (going north). Quite a few times when you thought you were on the flat you were actually going downhill ever so slightly going N-S you'd be on a very gentle upward incline.

The only downside we found with going S-N is that the signage isn't as good but the map does make things a lot clearer.