Can Bikepacking Fight River Pollution?

He had been complaining about the increased number of gaugers, soldiers and thieves on The Street, the main north to south route that crossed the Cheviot Ridge near Mozie Law and passed at a convenient distance near the pub. Twice he had been stopped and searched, twice he had received unwelcome blows and once he would have been in danger of his life if his assailant had not suddenly panicked at a strange noise and run off. That time he had owed his life to a wild goat but he knew how close he had come to ending his life on a lonely wind-swept moor.  – Roger Allen, Tales from the Slymefoot

On a remote drovers road deep in what today makes the Northumberland National Park, just a few clicks south of the Scottish border is the Coquet Valley. Here the Sylmefoot Tavern was a notorious waypoint, known for gambling, drinking and violence between travellers in a region famed for treachery and general villainy.

‘The valley is full of stories of treason, murder and illicit whisky production,’ says local mountain biker Tommy Wilkinson. ‘Inevitably, when you get a group of people who are unafraid to use violence to protect their interests, congregating in one place, sparks can fly. It epitomises what life was like in the valley between the late 1600s and late 1800s. It was lawless, or rather governed by rules that were as close to an eye for an eye as you can imagine.’

Today, all that’s left of the Slymefoot is a small rubble of rocks of which no one is even assured of their relevance. The people who occupy these lands are somewhat different too. Smugglers and thieves replaced by upland farmers and foresters. The legend and mystery of the old tavern however remains as does a general sense of wildness across the surrounding country.

Bright and early, our newly bonded group meet at Armstrong Cross in the town centre of Rothbury. Few of us know the area in any detail, and so the opportunity to explore it in the hands of those who’ve designed the route feels like one worth savouring.

We load the GPX file onto our respective devices and are soon heading north, climbing our way through narrow back lanes and bridleways skirting the small surrounding hamlets before entering the Northumberland National Park proper. The route we have ahead of us is a total of 114km of off road exposed moorland and forest gravel tracks with an accumulated elevation of almost 3000m. Today is set to be our longest. A gruelling 82km and the skies weigh heavy with a dark indication of what might be to come.

‘It’s a difficult term to contextualise when it comes to this area,’ explains Tommy. ‘It’s not wild in the ecological sense, the land is managed the way it is out of economic needs, choice, culture etc, and it is very much managed. However I would say there is a wild spirit about the communities and feeling of the place, a freedom to get on with things, enjoy the space and see wildlife that is declining, such as the curlew, lapwing, snipe and raptors.’

As we make our way further into the park, the terrain becomes steeper, the landscape less accommodating of us and our bikes. Steep hillsides seem to rise from nowhere. In cycling terms these aren’t large climbs, varying between 100 and 300 meters at a time, but they’re brutal, comically steep, ruler straight and littered with spherical boulders ranging in size between tennis ball and football. We all adopt the strange familiar hunched over stance – enough weight over the front of the bike to keep the front wheel connected and enough in the back to keep the rear from spinning out – as we zig zag through the maze of rocks desperately trying to keep the pedals turning.

Reaching a vantage point we can see several patches of flattened trees within the managed plantations  – a visual scar left by Storm Arwen earlier in the year. Tommy tells me how the storm is remembered locally for its surprisingly violent impact on the landscape, having brought with it wind speeds measuring as much as 98mph close by. I keep the conversation going as long as I can, buying valuable time in a bid to catch my breath in the howling wind.

The beauty of designing a route for people to discover this region is its ability to connect and engage its riders with this beautiful landscape. A reminder of what nature is and how it should look.

‘Seeing two healthy upper catchments of rivers is vital to our understanding of what rivers should be like,’ he says. ‘Teeming with bugs, birds, fish and clear, rocky bottoms.’

Leaving the cafe, we start the familiar uncomfortable process of on-the-bike digestion, trying to find warmth and movement again in our legs as we start the slow long ascent into the Cheviot Hills. From here we’ll follow the upper reaches of the Breamish river towards the Scottish border and the highest point of our journey, the aptly named Windy Gyle.

As our bodies absorb the calories we consumed at lunch, we group together. We share stories and find out a little more about each other to the sounds of derailleurs collectively clicking into our lowest available gear. Climbing slowly along the long ascent up Salters Road, we head for the Scotland border at what will eventually be our highest point of the two days.

With a little trouble, we negotiate our way through more fallen trees courtesy of the damage caused by Storm Arwen. Creating an assembly line, we each pass our bikes forward and over various fallen trunks, scrambling over and ducking under various obstacles in the way eventually out onto noticeably more exposed terrain.

The rounded muscular definition of the Cheviots stand pronounced all around us as the views open up in every direction. We reach the fence representing the Scottish border and our route takes a sharp left to run parallel along it, following stone slabs before the final pitch to the summit of Wyndy Gyle at 619m.

Having set off around 8 this morning, now as the sun dips beyond the steep hills that encase us and a chill descends upon the valley, my sore muscles remind me of the length of our day.

From here, in the steep-sided valley we follow military roads before shortly peeling off to connect with flowing singletrack alongside the Usway Burn river. A real highlight of the route this is some of the funnest trail riding alongside a stunning stretch of pristine water.

Eventually the Usway Burn meets the Coquet as does our tucked away singletrack connect once again with the tarmac that flows beside it. While it’s been a long day, tangible in the aching of my legs, it’s nothing a flowy stretch of tarmac can’t solve. In that familiar sense of childhood excitement we find ourselves unable to hold back from edging our front wheels ahead of one another as the pace slowly quickens until we reach our final destination, the Rose & Thistle in Alwinton. The pub’s owner has agreed to let us set up camp in the garden alongside his chickens and under the famously dark skies of the national park.