York to Hull 2025: Ride Report

This ride was actually scheduled for 3 October but, due to the forecast wind courtesy of Storm Amy, I decided to postpone the ride to the following weekend. Several riders weren't able to make it either because they had arranged to do other things or because it was impossible to get bike reservations for the new date.

So it was a smaller group that lined up at York Minster for the midnight start: smaller but just as competent and raring to go. At least I thought so...

It seemed that the centre of York was less busy than usual and we were soon out of the street lights and into the dark. This is where my Garmin started playing up (that's my excuse anyway) so I overshot a couple of turns that the others stopped at and waited. I should add that, because of the small size of the group, I shared the gpx with everyone and most people had downloaded it to their navigation device of choice. Their devices seemed to work better than mine...

It's not normal Friday's policy to give the whole group the intended route in advance but I figured, in this instance, it would be useful to share it. It was certainly a good idea...

I should add that I'd told everyone in advance that the gpx was an “intended” route that could change on the night and that I wouldn't be chasing anyone down if they went a different way. Shame they had to chase me a couple of times early on in the ride.

Like last year, we stopped at the services at Airmyn to use the toilets and to get a coffee from the Costa machines. Getting the coffee proved to be more difficult than anticipated because one was being cleaned and the other two needed cleaning before they could dispense properly. On top of that, the assistant was about to lock up for a few minutes and go to the toilet. Our arrival scuppered that plan but we eventually managed to get drinks and we chilled for a while. During the subsequent chat it became clear that one of the riders was struggling a bit with the speed of the group so I made a conscious decision to slow down a bit until the food stop at McDonald's Scunthorpe.

After a leisurely stop, we set off through Goole. Although the “new” route through the docks works very well, it does lack the character (and humour) of the ride through part of the town. I may go that way next time.

The best part of this ride (IMO) is the part that goes across Axholme Island. It's a manufactured landscape thanks to Dutch engineers like Vermuyden who drained the island to help to prevent flooding and to make more land available for agriculture and habitation.

The route is perfectly flat and the road zig-zags below the rivers (Ouse and then Trent if you're interested). As far as I can tell from the maps, we don't actually go below sea-level but this part of the route seems to be at an elevation of 2-4m. The rivers are above us though.

Despite my best intentions, I was still going faster than I'd planned to. At one of our frequent regroups, it became clear that the speed was still a little much for one of the riders so I determined to slow down from 23-25km/h to around 20km/h. This seemed to work better and we arrived in good shape at the McD's.

Following my “disappointing” experience with the food the previous year, I'd bought a sandwich to eat and I just bought a coffee followed by another one. The other riders all got food of some description and this proved to be a mistake for on of the group who suffered later on in the ride and went straight to the station when we got to Hull to get a train home rather than come for breakfast with the rest of us.

Suitably fortified we went out into the cold and again, my Garmin caused me to miss a turn. Thankfully this was the last time and I only went a few metres beyond the intended route before I was called back. Sigh.

Having decided to give Harkstow Bridge a miss, this section of the road proved to be surprisingly hilly with, at one point, a sneaky 10% section in one of the rises. We'd already agreed to climb at our own speed and to regroup at the top and this tactic proved to work very well: on the non-hilly bits we effectively rode as a group.

The last bit of the road route wasn't too busy before we dropped down to the Humber and then started the climb over the magnificent bridge.

After the Island of Axholme, this is my other favourite part of the ride although the ride past Drax power station is also quite impressive. You can see how they're burning our money so effectively....

After the Humber Bridge, the ride is a bit of a boring schlep into Hull and the Admiral of the Humber, the Wetherspoons pub where I'd intended to go for breakfast. I think we arrived at around 07.30 which was good. Last year they only opened at 08.00 so we had a diversion to the Humber Bridge viewpoint to kill a bit of time. Thankfully there was no need this year.

After a leisurely breakfast including a lot of the “bottomless” coffee, the remaining riders began to leave to go their various ways home.

For me that meant setting off to ride back to Selby along the Trans Pennine Trail to get the train to York and, from there, back to Manchester. More acts of Garmin ensued and the route I took didn't involve the TPT until I decided that I'd had enough and took matters into my own hands. That didn't work much better so, after climbing over a gate and riding along a sheep shit littered embankment I “engaged” Google Maps on my 'phone and instructed it to take me to Gilberdyke Station. This also didn't work too well because Maps insisted that the station was somewhere it wasn't. Sigh.

The only good thing about the riding around in circles was that I'd done the intended 100 miles by the time that I eventually found the station.

Train to home next year or should I get a better navigation device? We'll see.

I'd like to thank those riders that were able to make the revised date for your great company and enthusiasm. I'd also like to offer condolences to those who weren't able to make the revised dates. Looking at the actual (as opposed to the forecast) weather on the original date made me realise that it was certainly the correct decision to postpone the ride. I hope to do the ride again next year so, if you missed it this time, you should be able to join me in 2026. I'm not sure of the dates yet but, if it lands amongst the other rides, we'll probably only have one shot at it. Having said that, it's the only Friday's ride that I've had to rearrange because of the weather. I hope it's the last.

Finally, I'll ask the club's treasurer to refund the deposit that you paid in advance for food at the volunteer run mid-way stop we've used in the past.