Crossing Dartmoor North to South

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darbeze
Posts: 657
Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2013 1:09 pm
Location: South Devon

Crossing Dartmoor North to South

Post by darbeze »

I have thought about riding across Dartmoor for several years now. It is practically on my doorstep and definitely closer than Mid-Wales! I cannot explain why I have not had a proper ride out there before, apart for the very occasional little nibbles around the edges.

So, some annual leave was booked and plans made. I used OS Maps to create my GPX after studying the paper map and consulting with my wife Fi, who has spent many, many hours on all parts of the moor over the years herding young students in preparation for the Ten Tors event, or their Duke of Edinburgh award schemes.

Having received her seal of approval, we set off up to Okehampton to park up above the military camp. From here, Fi would walk out to the High Willhays and Yes Tor area to find a spot to camp solo while I would use the military tracks to begin my ride South. The plan being to meet Fi and the van in Ivybridge the next day.

All of my previous bikepacking escapades have used soft luggage systems. However, having extensively used a rear rack and panniers for delivering my bread, and more recently adding a front rack to add loaf carrying capacity, I thought I would try out my new front panniers and rack to see how that worked off-road. I am a rucksack using bike packer, so I thought I would move what I would usually have on my back to the front low rider panniers. I sensibly decided to test this out near my house before the real thing, and I am very glad I did! It felt horrible and I quickly decided not to do that and just strapped my regular handlebar dry bag to the rack instead and used my backpack as normal.

Anyway, back to the ride. I think I got no more than around 2kms before the rack started to rattle itself loose. Out with the allen key and tweak it back tight. Another 2km and the same again. At around 6km, the novelty had worn off and I started to get fed up. So another check of the bolts… This is when I discovered my allen key is not long enough to reach the bolt threaded through the bottom fork rack mount eyelet, which had come loose of course… What do I do now? I had no means of tightening the rack back up with me… So, after some mid trail faffing, I took the handlebar dry bag (Ortleib 13ltr) and strapped it directly to my handlebars. This is pretty much what I normally do, minus an old Revelate harness that I would usually have with me. At least now the rack didn’t have any weight on it and stopped rattling, thank goodness. So lesson learned. Blackburn Outpost front racks are not very good at carrying loads off-road, despite being designed to do so. I shall stick to using mine for delivering bread on-road from now on, which it does very well.

Onwards and Southwards… The military tracks are great riding. Easy navigation and nothing too strenuous. I threaded my way southwards with no further incident to The Grey Wethers stone circles. This is where the ride became more like a Bear Bones event. I should have been suspicious when looking at the map pre-ride. From Grey Wethers, there is a marked bridleway that heads due south in a perfectly straight line for just over 3km. Just as in Mid-Wales, there is no visible track on the ground. The bridleway very quickly disappears into tussocks, which then become a sea of chest high gorse, which you can just about pick a sheep wide track through. Definitely no room for person and bike, so up on the shoulders with the bike. Great fun… Type 2 of course! It was at this point I remembered many moments of discontent riding various BB200 routes over the years, including the fabled 2014 event. Of course, these events follow routes created by Stuart himself. It is very easy when things are not going well on such events to blame Stuart for the hardship and discomfort during these times. I actually laughed out loud in the middle of the gorse sea when it struck me that I could blame no-one else but myself for being in the middle of North Dartmoor, up to my chest in sharp gorse, carrying a loaded bike and getting scratched to ribbons and thoroughly fed up with the situation! What seemed like a very long time later, I was very relieved to be rolling down into Postbridge, and at least some easier navigation, and even a little bit of tarmac!

The light starting to fade as I was riding through Bellever forest, and I knew that I would be crossing the West Dart river on stepping stones soon, so I found a place to bivvi before getting there. I was amazed/disappointed to realise that this was my first bivvi out with my bike for over a year! I shall have to correct this very poor situation…

After the usual fitful sleep, I enjoyed a good coffee and a couple of chocolate bars for breakfast. Then set off down towards the river. I am certainly glad I didn’t try to cross the river in the dark. I had forgotten how crap the path before the river is and how deep the water can be at the first set of stones, and they are not exactly flat and spd shoe friendly. The water was way over my hubs and bottom bracket, so I have to check those over before going on any more long rides…

Feeling quite chipper and with only a couple more poor navigation choices that I had to correct, I found myself dropping down towards Whiteworks. I was just thinking how good it was that I had managed to keep my feet dry when I reached the not insignificant bog before getting there. Oh well, I had managed a whole day keeping them dry. I always find it funny that once you have got your feet wet, you don’t mind doing it again after the initial dunking…

So, at this point, you think I would have had a word with myself as the next part of the route was due south on another dead straight bridleway. Even the names Foxtor Mires, Blacklane Mire and Middle Mire didn’t ring any alarm bells in my head. I got about 100 meters into Foxtor Mires when I realised that this is no place for a hike, let alone a bike and a hike. Super deep boggy tussock hell stretching away over the next two big hills… No thanks. So, about face and re-route back to Whiteworks, follow the road to the nearest track and then South to Nun’s Cross farm, and then off across the moor on another bridleway, which you can see evidence of, at least to begin with!

Way more pushing until I reached Erme Pits, affectionately known as Arm Pits due to its unpleasant nature for walking or riding through. It is a really jumbled and confusing place seemingly in the middle of nowhere. I rejoined my planned route after this and was then heading for the “Puffing Billy” track from Red Lake down to Ivybridge. Two things I should remind myself of here are: 1. Check contours and ground conditions. 2. Check distances and try to remember them roughly and don’t guess.

I managed to find another delightful area of tussock pushing heaven and boggy ford crossing before finally reaching the fabled track. I casually imagined that I was now only minutes away from my destination. I had failed to realise that the track is over 10km long. At least is genuinely (nearly) downhill all the way. Whilst I was grateful for the downhill, you really do have to be careful at this point in any ride. You have been riding and pushing for many hours over difficult terrain, when you encounter some really easy downhill tracks that will take you to the finish. You start to relax mentally. This is not a good combination when you are hurtling a loaded bike down a bumpy stoney track. I realised I had slipped into autopilot when a fair sized rock nearly bucked me off the bike as I was day dreaming of getting to the van… Oops!

Anyway, I safely reached Ivybridge and met up with Fi as planned. A total ride time of 4.5 hours on day one and 6 hours on day two. And I thought Day one would be the hardest… Silly boy. Just over 35 miles and 5600ft of climbing in total. It doesn’t sound too much when you write it down, but don’t let the numbers deceive you!

I have tried to embed images of the ride from Google Drive and DropBox, but I can't seem to get either to appear. If anyone has any ideas on how to fix, I will add the pictures...

Keep pedalling,

Si
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