Great Rides: Space for Cycling

Details Where: York and its outskirts Start/finish: York, North Yorkshire Distance: 31 miles over three days Pictures: Melissa Viney 52 cycle APRIL/MAY 2020 YORK GREAT RIDES MELISSA VINEY & MARK HENNESSY Melissa is a journalist who Great lives in London – as does Mark. That’s where they Rides usually cycle together. SPACE FOR CYCLING A sociable tandem and a route map of the Solar System cycle route helped create a stellar weekend of cycling in York for Melissa Viney and Mark Hennessy e’re travelling faster than the speed Do it yourself travel on behalf of Travel York, puts us right and of light, shooting past Mars and Inclusive cycling hands us a detailed cycle map of the city. W Jupiter. Our craft is a side-by-side Further along, Mark has to dismount as I quadricycle, our velocity scale speed: we’re Cycling UK has manhandle the cumbersome quadricycle through ‘cycling the solar system’ on the York to Selby supported more than a barrier. We may be figuratively travelling faster cycle track (NCN Route 65). Annotated models 40 Inclusive Cycling than the speed of light but on earth, unlike outer of the planets punctuate a 6.4 mile section of Centres across England space, there are gates and railings to negotiate. what was once the East Coast main line. Since as part of a Big Lottery Once through the gate we’re away – flying, it’s a rail trail, it’s flat. This helps because my funded project. For so to speak – wind in our hair, sun on our faces, co-rider Mark is disabled. A brain injury in 2008 more information, delighted, free. Each of the planets we pass along left him unable to walk unassisted. visit cyclinguk.org/ the route has a nugget of information printed Like many disabled people, Mark finds cycling community-outreach/ below it. Did you know that a day is longer than a easier than walking. If only there were more inclusive-cycling- year on Venus? Or that Jupiter has 57 moons? accessible routes! In London, where we both live, network. We turn back just before Pluto. Even at a scale he owns a side-by-side tricycle. It’s immensely If you want to try of 575,872,239 to 1, our trip across most of the solar sociable but easily balked by cycle track barriers, out adaptive bikes system and back will amount to 12 miles. That’s and it’s hard to cart around to ride further afield; in York with Get enough for us on our first day. The quadricycle neither of us drives. Cycling, meanwhile, takes some serious pedalling. That’s where Get Cycling – just a two-hour train visit getcycling.org. Next day we’re up early. We’re planning journey away in York – came up trumps for us. uk. York is easy to to do the ‘pink route’ on our map. It goes to get to by train. LNER Beningbrough Hall, nine miles away. The ride DAY ONE: SPACE FOR CYCLING services will even carry starts well: lovely quiet cycling beside the River Get Cycling hires, sells, and adapts all kinds of conventional tandems Ouse, and then over the newly cycle-friendly bicycles, and specialises in disability cycling. (booked as two bikes). Scarborough bridge – cycle-friendly, that is, until When we arrive, founder Jim McGurn gives us you get to the other side. a Roam Twinbike and a map of the local cycle I’ll let Mark take up the story… routes, and off we go. We both have pedals but the gears and steering are on my side. DAY TWO: TO ME, TO YOU The sun is out and we’re on our way Having crossed Scarborough Bridge, we have to Neptune. Almost immediately, we’re to navigate another barrier. I say ‘we’ in the flummoxed by a fork in the track. Local loosest sense, as it involves me holding onto cyclist Guy, who campaigns for sustainable a wall while Melissa and a helpful passer- CYCLINGUK.ORG cycle 53 GREAT RIDES YORK Fact file Side by side Distance: 31 miles total, averaging 10 each day. Route: Day 1, Solar System route from York to Naburn. Day 2, Beningbrough Hall Go Dutch route as far as Skelton. The Netherlands’ vast Day 3, Osbaldwick cycle network is ideal route. for inclusive cycling: Conditions: Hot cyclinguk.org/great- sunshine and, rides-netherlands Main photo: Mark by the River aside from some Ouse, near the railway station impenetrable barriers, Bottom: York Minster good cycle tracks. Above all, flat. Accommodation: Airbnb by manoeuvre the quadricycle. This looks as Joseph Rowntree Housting Trust, Joseph Rowntree Bike used: Roam awkward as getting a wardrobe down a flight having been born in York. Twinbike quadricycle of stairs, but they manage. If you’re a disabled It’s hot. We stop for lunch in St Nicks Nature loaned by Get Cycling. cyclist, it helps if your companion is fit and able Reserve before heading back into central York and Maps/guides: Blue, and has a gung-ho attitude! to our rendezvous with Jim McGurn. He’s a nice pink, and orange We continue alongside the River Ouse. man who clearly cares about cycling, especially routes suggested by Manicured front gardens give way to flat accessible cycling. He and his wife should know: Get Cycling. Plus Travel countryside with wide open horizons. Then of their five grown-up children (both fostered and York map and Google a potential argument rears its head: the map born to them), three have special needs. McGurn Maps. To explore suggests we go one way, common sense another. saw that the cost of accessible cycles was a further, use Sustrans’ Luckily we get it right. But after negotiating major impediment, so Get Cycling began visiting NCN map #28, cattle grids and other man-made barriers, we Holland, buying up used accessible cycles to Yorkshire Wolds, York encounter one that the Twinbike can’t pass. The renovate, making them more affordable for clients. & The Humber. alternative route is via a narrow cycle path on a The Get Cycling headquarters is close to the I’m glad I had… My pavement, with the traffic of the A19 thundering riverside cycle track. While this is convenient, smartphone, for when past on one side and thick hedgerows exfoliating McGurn is aware of the access issues for wide we got lost (Melissa). my skin on the other. bikes like our Roam Twinbike. He plans to create A capable, able- We plough on and come to the garden centre a map that will show exactly where tricycles and bodied companion to at Skelton. As Melissa takes a well-earned nap, quadricycles can go. He also wants to increase navigate the barriers I reflect on the journey that has led me to this the range of disability cycling holidays in the UK, (Mark). point. I decided to buy a side-by-side cycle after currently at practically zero. Next time I hiring one at local park. I love the feeling cycling “I think York is missing a trick,” says McGurn. “It would… Like a more gives of rapid movement under my own steam. should be branding itself as the cycling city. That comprehensive, The only downside for me, as a misanthrope, is should be its calling card.” accessible-cycling the extra attention a side-by-side cycle attracts! We have a bit of time before our train back to map (Melissa). Go in Back to Melissa… London, so we turn the quadricycle around and summer to make the return to the river. Fortune smiles on us again: we most of the daylight DAY THREE: CYCLING FOR ALL come across a little ice-cream boat moored by the (Mark). To make sure we don’t get stuck or lost again, Get cycle track. As we sit enjoying our cornets, we feel Further info: Wheels Cycling’s Jim McGurn provides us with a guide the autumn sun on our faces. It’s been for Wellbeing, wheels for our last day. Peter knows that part of the cycle a wonderful break. forwellbeing.org. track we’d planned to use is being dug up. So uk. Disability instead we head along quiet roads, through old, resources, almost too-perfect villages. ableize. We turn off the road and onto Route 66 (not that More info com. one), which takes us through Derwenthorpe, an Fancy cycling the Solar Sustrans, impressive eco-village development in the village System yourself? Visit: sustrans. york.ac.uk/solar/ of Osbaldwick, equipped with biomass boilers org.uk. itravelyork.info/cycling and fantastic insulation. It was funded by the 54 cycle APRIL/MAY 2020.

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