Motorcycle Explorer February 2015 Issue 4 | Page 230

5) North Yorkshire Moors
These moors cover some 554 square miles of
heathland wilderness, but unlike the countryside
around the Peddars Way, this terrain goes up and down
a lot!
The moors are criss-crossed by tracks, but beware,
many of them are private shooting roads and you can
find yourself in a lot of trouble should you stray onto
these. You need to arm yourself with the relevant
Ordnance Survey maps (OS 26 and 27 as a minimum)
and make sure that you are a proficient enough map
reader to be able to find out where you are on them
when you are away from settlements and made-up
roads. A map-reader’s compass is handy, as you can
use it to take bearings off prominent landmarks and
find your position on the map by triangulation.
Rudland Rigg, is the jewel in the crown of the North
Yorkshire Moors routes, and it runs for 10 miles in a
roughly north-north-westerly direction from its start
north-west of Pickering. This is one of those routes
that starts easy and ends up hard, with some fearsome
rock steps at the northern end. The best advice is to
park up before the last bit and walk it, then decide
whether you want to try to ride down it or would rather
turn around and ride back. Don’t be tempted to stray
onto the Cleveland Way for an easy northern exit…it’s
not legal and will be infested with walkers, some of
whom will delight in reporting you.