When I get carried away with my own fitness (that’s relative to tortoise: mph) I have a largely uphill local route that I do to remind me of my own limits.

Wheezed my way round it today to level my exuberance.

Riding down the Cinder track taking advantage of the unseasonably good summer weather. Although the Cinder track is less Cinder and more of a Pothole path with plenty of shake rattle and roll along the way. I iamgine it’s a even more of a challenge when wet. Cycling out of Whitby and over the Larpool (Esk) Viaduct affords backwards views of the ruined Abbey at Whitby which also provides an atmospheric navigation point for the return journey. Onwards and towards Robin Hood’s bay the track runs parallel to the Cleveland Way – the coastal path – and so the sea can be seen from a variety of high points along the way heading past Robin Hood’s Bay and onwards to Ravenscar (the town that time forget) and the Radar Station down the incline from the old station.

There are a number of long inclines on the Cinder Track which the original locomotives struggled with up until the clousure of the goods and passenger line until 1965. These inclines still prove a challenge to the casual cyclist part of the challenge being safely negotiating the lumps and bumps so as not to lose your centre of gravity and have your wheels slide out from underneath you. Only cycled as far as Burniston as from a previous trip I know the track ends at a less than salubrious Sainsbury’s car park in Scarborough. At Cloughton sought a way down to the sea without success before heading back to Whitby.