Claire :

I did this with 2 pals on Saturday. We absolutely loved it - the trail is well marked up but it was a bit muddy in places, this was only to be expected as it had rained so much recently. There is a variety of trails and scenery and you can have a tea & cake stop in Wetherby as there are plenty of coffee shops. People have put a lot of effort into marking this trail up for the enjoyment of others and we really appreciated it.

Well marked signs. Variety of trail conditions.

None.

Des:

Would of had more fun squeezing our lasses spots

Non

All

Steve Cordingley:

Not too technical, a decent distance, and moderate hills. Family friendly trail.

This is an excellent trail that can be tackled by the whole family. While there are a few minor challenges, a few hills that will get your heart going and mud galore when it's wet, it's also nearly all off road, runs through beautiful countryside and has some decent pub stops (notably Spofforth and Sicklinghall), where you'll find refreshment and food. Because it's in sections, it's also pretty easy to ride it in small chunks, and that is probably the main thing to make it family friendly. We've taken our seven-year-olds from Wetherby to Sicklinghall and back (distance about 17.5 Km) and they were stretched but loved it. This is very much a shared trail, with walkers, mountain bikers and horses and, here and there, farm traffic. That means that it's often not possible to go fast but, as I found when I had a couple of punctures last weekend, it also means there's lots of people to talk to, checking I was okay, had everything I needed, and so on. All in all, this is a great local resource and the people that took the trouble to waymark it have done a great service to their community.

Honestly, these are small issues, but worth knowing about if you haven't done the trail yet. There are a few stretches of lanes, and so children and traffic combinations can be a problem where the lanes can't be avoided. There are a couple of very muddy sections which can reduce even hardened mountain bikers to walking and pushing. And the waymarks can sometimes be hard to spot, so for a first time around the trail, it's often necessary to stop and search when the way forward isn't obvious.