An MTB ride from the Burrator reservoir through the village of Sheepstor and up onto the track towards Nuns Cross, then I continued to Princetown. From Princetown I carried on along the old railway track eventually ending up back the reservoir from where the ride started. This video shows you the trail in detail, in an anti clockwise direction.
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John
Bike – Merida Big Trail 500
Camera used – Insta 360 Ace Pro 2 and the Insta 360 Mic Air
Hello and welcome back to my midweek ride. It’s Wednesday the 20th of August quart 3 in the afternoon obviously and uh I have decided to ride from Bor Reservoir around the what I call the Prince Town Loop anticlockwise. I did do this a few weeks ago and somehow managed to lose the video when I was editing to show you exactly how to get around. So, I’m going to do it again today. It’s a bit cooler today, more cool than it was yesterday, but it’s still quite nice. The temperature is showing 20.4. My other half’s daughter is with us at the moment, and I’ve just uh dropped them off. Well, not drop them off. They’ve got the key to the van. Actually, we parked up at Borur and they’ve gone for a walk and we decided or planned to meet back at the van around in about 2 and 1 half hours. So, that’s what I plan to do. I want to try and get into Prince Town to get into Dwer Stone if I can to get a nice coffee and maybe buy myself a t-shirt. I stupidly left my phone behind and wallet at home. So, I’ve got I’ve got Yushi’s bank card. Happy days. Anyway, I shall show you around this route. I have put a video on here before. I think it was when I was with with Heather. I think we’re heading from Bor anticlockwise going towards the village of Sheep’s Tour. where there’s a lovely little church. The last time I did this, I went up past uh Ditworthy Warren Farm, which takes me across the moors. I shan do that today because it’ll take longer than it normally does. Here’s the sign for sheep store. Drop down into this. Then we got a nice steady climb up the other side up onto the moors. So, I’ll soon warm up. Although, I’m not that cold yet, actually. Only got one thin layer on. I’ve just bought myself a new top actually from a company called Odyssey. It’s an It’s um an English company. Made in Great Britain. Not the cheapest, but really nice quality stuff. The stuff I normally wear, which you see me in, is the GMBBN, Global Mountain Bike Network jerseys, mountain bike jerseys. but they’ve not replaced the stock. So, I’ve gone over to this company. Not the cheapest, but nice stuff, which I’ll show you later. [Applause] We’re just coming into Sheep’s Tour now. It’s a little hamlet really rather than a village. And straight ahead of us, you got the church, which I have been in before. Now up there is a nice climb. I forget what it’s called now, but I’ve managed to climb up that one before. It’s a long hall up onto the moors. But then from here, everywhere is uphill. As you ride this, it’s quite flat for a while. The stream was on my right. We’re now pulling away from that. It starts to climb a little bit now. We’re coming up to about a mile from where we started. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Looks like mom, dad, and the kids are out having a good time. I think they sounded foreign actually on holiday in England. Keep following the road. Don’t make the mistake that I made when I came here um a few uh a few months ago. I normally do this trail clockwise and one day I did it anticlockwise. Here’s the blue top, by the way, the Odyssey top. I’ll tell you more about that later. And when I did it clockwise, I was a little bit disorientated. So rather than taking that road straight on, I went up here. It’s a nice climb to the top and then I realized I’d gone the wrong way. So I had to come all the way back again. Great fun coming back down. So from Borator, just keep following the road. There are giveaway markings on the road. So following the road, you just bear right and just carry on. That little stream is now on my left and continues for a while until we start climbing towards the moors. Sounds like a bloody kennel on my right. Right. There’s the stream still on the left. Afternoon. All good. I know. I normally go I normally go the other way round, but recently I’ve been doing it that way round cuz I like going along the railway track back down towards Boratour. It’s nicer that way. Otherwise, it’s a long haul of going up. No, somebody else just went past. He was smiling. And I always take it steady cuz you never know if any dogs are going to come out in front of you. Really? Oh yeah. They don’t have a clue, do they? [Applause] Yeah. Have a good day. There’s your local farmer. Anyway, here we are. We’re on the climb. See what the gradient is. Showing 5% already. And if you understood what the farmer was saying, he was saying that somebody went flying one day and went into him down there on the bike. Obviously going a bit too fast. This is your first climb, proper climb from the reservoir. [Applause] The gradient’s 11% at the moment. It does get steeper. So, it’s up this hill over this cattle grid that’s just in front of us. And then you turn left. [Applause] So don’t go that way. Turn left towards Natal. That’s good climb. I had a bit of homemade shortbread and a bit of chocolate and ginger cake just before we left from the van. [Applause] Right, we’ve cycled to the top that track. It’s a no through road, so it comes to a dead end unless you got a four-wheel drive something or other and a small one at that cuz it gets narrow towards the top. Um, if you’ve seen my videos before, I’ve shown you um or pointed up towards this one. And in the distance, there’s a track you can see on the hill. I can’t see it on my screen. Um, but I’m guessing you can see it on the video. Um, and as I said, I normally go up this track which takes you takes you along to place called Ditzsworthy Warren. And there’s a house there. That was the house they used in the film of Warhorse. Not sure if you’ve heard of that film or seen the film. I normally go or have done the last couple of rides, gone to there, and then gone over the moors right to the top and met or meet up with the track that we’re going to take, which you can probably see in the distance um as a little white track. And that track goes on and on to the top. It’s great fun coming down, but as I said, we’re going anticlockwise today. So yeah, it’s a nice climb coming up. I think they’re doing something to the Ditzsworthy Warren house because there’s some work going on over there. Whether they’re doing more filming or not, I’m not sure. Right, then off we go. It’s all off road now. and I’ll go up the track that I showed you in the distance over the top and then we’ll head down towards Prince Town and the mast. Not sure. Let’s just zoom in whether you can see whether you can see the mast to the in the distance, but the mast is up there which is near the prison and the prison is now closed. Okay, let’s uh tackle this lovely hill. I’ll um I’ll come back on here and show you when I’m halfway up rather than uh talk to you halfway up the hill. I’ll just show you where we’re starting from. We’ve just come there’s a nice ford there to go through if you if you so wish and get soaked, which I’m not doing. Or just across the little bridge behind me. And then it’s straight up now. Nice long climb. I’ll keep the switched on for a little bit for the first 10 minutes. [Applause] I think I cycled up here once with the wind against me. Quite a strong wind, too. You’re open to the elements up here. That’s another thing. If you are going to get up onto Dartmore or do this route, just check the weather first. Make sure and dress accordingly. Make sure you got the right gear. I haven’t got much with me today. I’ve got a windproof top to go over this. I’ve got also a um marina wool base layer. So, if I need to, I’ve got three layers. But I’m going to get pretty warm doing this climb. I shouldn’t need anything. I may do going down the other side possibly. all my all my videos, the roots that I’ve I’ve done on my uh YouTube somewhere. It shows the link to my Strava. So, if you got straa, you can go on to that and you can have a look at the route in detail or if you want to, you can follow it and download it and put it on your Straa and then onto your Garmin. If you have a Garmin, put into your computer and follow it. Now, this is a public bridal way, so bikes are allowed. Now, it gets a bit sketchy up here. It’s good fun. I’m going to go left and cheat a little bit. I usually ride it, but it looks bloody loose, actually. [Applause] There’s the strail. There’s the trail straight ahead. [Applause] [Applause] It’s a nice long plot all the way up. It goes on for a long way. Keep the legs going. Keep spinning. As I said earlier, this does go on and on. Looking up just now, it looks like it finishes and then you get here and as you can probably see it continues. [Applause] [Applause] Okay, I’m up 2/3 at least 2/3 of the route. Let’s just put this on on zoom. Not sure if you can see in the distance. This is the path here. And in the distance there’s the path I’ve I’ve come up. It looks like it dips down and free wheels. Or you could freewheel. I did briefly, but it’s not for long. It’s a good old climb and you carry on and towards the top it gets steeper. Average speed today is going to be quite low. I’m on uh 6.7% at the moment, but I have been climbing most of the way. Once I get around the top from Prince Town along the railway line or the old railway line, it’s um quite a nice descent. Uh the uh the gradient, it’s not a big gradient, but it’s enough to make it easy going down. And the wind is against me going up, so it should be behind me going back down. Looking forward to that. There is a big loop on that railway line that goes right the way round um a tour, but because of time factor today and getting back to meet the Mrs. and her daughter, we or I need to be back by half 5. And it’s 10 to 4 already. So, I need to really get my ass in gear. I’ve done well today actually. I normally stop a few times coming up there. I’m normally with somebody who’s a lot slower than me. Not saying that I’m that fast. Anyway, my new top. Do you like it? I’m really pleased with it. It’s uh it’s a little bit thicker than the other one, the GMBBM ones that I’ve got, but it feels nice and cool. It’s a nice fabric. Um I’m not sure if I told you how much I paid, but the short sleeve is 50 and the long sleeve is 60. And it’s free carriage for anything over 50 pounds. So that worked out okay. And they also got a free neck buff as well with it. Service um was great. I got delivery the next day. Um it’s run the company’s run by just three people. B called Chris, his wife, and I think her sister or his sister, and that’s it. But it’s a British company, and I thought it’d be nice to support someone in the UK for a change. Okay, I got my last bit towards the top. I can see a few people on the top of the um tour in front of me. Once I get to the top, there’s a few descents and climbs, but not much. And then it’s straight down into Prince Town and then down the other side. Okay, I’m at the fork of the trail, which I’ll show you in a minute. I haven’t cycled right to the top, but I’m nearly at the top. Um towards the top just now, the gradient went up to um 11%. I was in second gear. I could have gone into third, but I would have probably worn my legs out completely and I didn’t want to go too mad. Um, it’s quite cool. It’s nice. Just right. Actually, I’m sweating. Uh, this trail we’ve come up all the way from the distance. You might be able to see the other track I’m pointing, but it’s probably not correct on the screen. Um, all the way up. Let me just keep following it and just fork to the left here cuz you can take this trail down here. That’s the trail that I come along when I’ve gone to Ditsworthy Warren which I mentioned earlier on which goes right over the back there somewhere and eventually comes over the top of this tour and then you’ve come up to here. Pick this track up here and then just come up and pick it up and then come up to where we are now. So we’ve just come up a different way straight from the bottom and the other way is to ditzsworthy warren. You can find it on Google Google maps but I will do this route again and I’ll incorporate that with it as well. I need to do that before the winter before it gets too wet. It’s a lot of grass cycling to do. And when it’s wet it’s like cycling on a sponge. Really saps your energy. I’ll keep this going for a minute. Um the camera we’ve um done 3 and 3/4 miles. Average speed 6.2. As I said, it will be low. And I’ve been cycling for just over half an hour. I’m feeling good today. Getting back into doing some mileage as well. I think that helps with the stamina or endurance. But the temperatures are good. Not energy sapping. Just the hills. Dartmore’s a fantastic place to cycle. There’s so much to explore. I haven’t explored half of it really. I always come to Prince Town or Borator. I like this trail. It’s not too far away from home. I should really go further a field [Applause] this weekend. I miss she’s up to London to visit her daughter for a couple of nights. So, I’ve got the weekend free and I might uh plan a ride somewhere. Well, I will plan a ride. I don’t know where yet. This is the top of that climb. I have stopped twice. I blame you, the viewer of my channel, for that. So, I could just tell you where I was and what was what was occurring. We do eventually come across the top of a trail which we won’t be taking today which go straight back down to Borator before you get into Prince Town called the Widow Maker which I have mentioned before which I’ll show you where that is if you so wish on your head be There’s a section we come across in a minute with more those bloody boulders. Again, it’s like cycling on giant marbles. Great fun. It’s on the flat. It’s not on a climb. So, it makes it a bit easier. But again, I hope you’re enjoying the ride so far. Looking a bit bleak ahead, isn’t it? Bit black. I don’t want it to rain. Didn’t order rain today. Right. I think we’re coming up to that section now. Yeah, we are. I don’t like this. It’s bloody energy sapping. This is really a pain in the ass. It’s one of those tracks you have to keep looking well ahead and right in front of you at the same time to try and work out the best line to take. Probably doesn’t look much on the cam on the camera I should say, but it’s not easy. I did come off the bike once going along nothing like this, but it’s the middle of nowhere and the front wheel hit one of these little boulders and flipped me off. I went bloody flying. Wasn’t going very fast either. If you’re not into cycling off road, this really isn’t for you. I wouldn’t want to do this on a gravel bike and definitely not on a road bike. No chance. Yeah. That’s that done. Not sure if you can see that house down there on the right. I forget what it’s called now. Bleak. Bleak house, I think it’s called. You can pay to stay there. There’s nothing there in the way of amenities at all. I think you might get a bunk bed, maybe a gas cylinder to be able to cook something, but I guess if you’re doing that, you’d want to probably be be self-sufficient anyway. Just have the building as shelter. Not for me. I like me creature comforts. I’m actually free weeding now. So you got these cutouts all the way down. Little pony on the right. A little one. I think this is called Nun’s Cross here. There’s a little pony. Look at that. Isn’t that cute? Yeah, there’s the house. I think there’s some people um just to the left between the house and the tree. what I can see with my naked eye and probably on the screen people putting a tent up or taking one down. Right, I’ve got a bit of a climb now. There’s a few descents and climbs like a roller coaster. Not too much and um we can get down into Princetown. I don’t know that uh my favorite shop, Durstone, will be open after 4:00. We’ll see when we get there. [Applause] Okay, we’re at a crossroads now, but to carry on with this route that I’m on, we just continue straight ahead of us. But, and there’s a butt. If you want to go down the Widowmaker, you turn left down there. That’s the Widow Maker. And it’s called the Widow Maker for a reason. It’s good fun. I’ve got a hard tail, not a full suspension. My son-in-law’s gone down there a lot younger than me and more more crazy. I think he did it in I think he did it in something like 10 minutes. I’ve done it I think 2 minutes, one and a half, two minutes longer than him. It’s a mile and something long, if not longer than that. And uh Ushi and I once decided to walk down it and it’s bloody hard work. It’s easier to ride it on a bike than it is to walk down there. I was talking to somebody this week I bumped into somewhere and they said exactly the same. It’s a bugger. Lots of those little boulders, marbles as I call them, giant marbles. But it’s fast in places. It’s really good fun. You’ve really got to be switched on and check where your front wheel is going and make sure you got the correct line. Otherwise, you’ll go flying and it will probably hurt because it’s uh it wouldn’t be a soft landing. Lots of granite type stones and sharp objects, stones and stuff. But it’s good fun. And that goes straight down to Borat where we started from the reservoir. But the the other end, this end, we started from the far end. We need to carry on. I hope you’re still watching. And the temperature is showing. It says 15.6. Ooh, that sounds cold. I don’t think it is. I think that’s the uh the wind against the computer cooling it down. I think that’s what I had yesterday on the granite way, but that was because it was raining and that cooled it down. Little pony here, so I better be careful. Is it going to move? No, it’s just going to stand right in the way. You going to stay there? Yeah, it doesn’t want to move. It’s happy just to stay there. I guess that’s the mother over there in the distance. We’ll cycle past slowly. Oh, there it goes. I’ve been up here in the wind and the rain when it’s cold. Still good fun. It’s okay if you got a change of clothes when you get back to your vehicle. It’s one thing with the van. I can stock a lot of stuff in there. Have all the different different things I need and get changed in the back which is easy. Nearly at Princetown now. Done 6.6 miles so far. Cheers. Give it a good push. I’ll I’ll grab it. That’s it. Lovely. much. [Applause] Have a good ride. Here we are, Prince Town. [Applause] Right, it’s half past 4 now. Do a stone are closed. A bugger bugger bugger. Okay. Right. We’re in Prince Town now stone. Right. So from here you take a left here which is just before the old police station cafe. Keep going past the car park on your left and the Prince of Worlds car park on the right. Pass the fire station on the left, which you’ll see in a minute. Are you Are you lost? No, we’re just trying to work out so where exactly we are. We reckon we’re You trying to pick up the trail to to Frog Quarry? Frogggin. A Frogggin tour. Yeah. Right. Okay. Um I think we need to go down here. I’ve not been that way to fog into tour. Sure. There’s also the straight line. I mean, you can carry on if you carry on along here. You turn. See, that lady came out. You go into there, takes a path, and you’ll get onto the old railway line. Mhm. If you carry on the railway line, you then come across a a little bridge where something that goes over got my reading glasses on. Um where are we? We are We’re somewhere. This is the trail. This is the trail I’m going to pick up here. Yeah. And you carry on along the the trail and you’ll as you’ll go across a bridge. It’s the only one you’ll see. And to your right, you’ll see a path and if you go over there, that’ll take you towards Frogggin. Okay. Okay. It’s quite pretty that way. Yeah. This little track. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. Fogging is great. It’s a lovely place. Are you camping there? Uh, no. Not at Foggin. A bit further up. Um, I’ve lost it somewhere. Great miss tour was the plan. Yeah, tour is great. If you go, you’ll be right down. You’ll then go around the other side and you can go in and go right beside the the core itself. That’s very cool. Okay. Thank you so much. That’s okay. Enjoy yourselves. Yeah, you too. So, there’s a fast station on the left and then take a left just here. It’s nice to help those two out. They looked excited about seeing fogging to quarry. Fogging to quarry is great. I did a video oh years ago with my old Aasso cam that I had which is not a bad little cam. I’ve still got it actually. Um not as sophisticated as this one. And uh yeah, it’s a great quarry. We’ll go there again and make a video of that. do that on a walk with the misses and just carry on along this trail. Now, it’s pretty straightforward. Hope you follow that. Let’s make sure I’ve got my camera on actually to make sure that I did show you. I hope I have. That would have been stupid. If I hadn’t. And that’s it. Just carry on with it. [Applause] Hello Now, I used to go around this, as I said before, clockwise. And when we got onto the railway line in a minute, the old railway line it used to be, um, it’s a slight gradient, but coming up this way, it’s a long, long trail and it’s a slog. But going this way around, the wind is generally behind you and there’s a slight downhill gradient. [Applause] Hello. And uh it’s you can get some speed up. There is a shortcut before you get towards the end where there’s a huge loop that goes around the tour. I think I mentioned that earlier. Um, I’ll take that shortcut today actually and I’ll be back in time to meet the others back at the van. Hello. As I was just saying, it’s lovely just to zoom along here. 17 18 miles an hour. It’s only a 2% gradient, but enough to be a slog coming the other way. But this way, it’s fun. And a lot faster again. Just keep going here. Don’t go left and don’t go right. That’s not the place I want to go down there, is it? Hang on. I need to think about this. Yes, I need to go down there. That’s the shortcut. Okay, if you carry on, see this tour, right? See this tour ahead of me here? This trail goes right the way round and it goes around a long, long way, all the way around and back down to the trail at the bottom here. There’s a bridge in the distance which you probably can’t see, but anyway, we’re going down this trail which is a which is a shortcut. Um, it’s quarter to 5, so that’ll be good. It’s going to take me another half an hour yet. So, I’ll be back by about quart 5ish. I think it’s about half an hour. But yeah, straight down here. Hope you got that. Nice boat rattle of this one. Got loads of walkers coming up here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Walking with the heads down. I can’t even see what’s going on. Couldn’t they hear me? Dear. Oh dear. How do people get through life? Now, I use clipless pedals, meaning I’m clipped in, which makes life a lot a lot easier going down a place like that. I have got flats, but quite frankly, it’s no fun cuz your feet are bouncing about all over the place. Right, the bottom of that track. So from here you’re coming up from this trail here. That’s from Borator which is we’re heading down towards now. And then normally you carry on all the way around that tour which is back to where I was showing you at the top. And we’ve taken the shortcut that cuts this out completely. This is great fun. Makes you feel young again. And stupidly I’m holding the handlebars on a loose surface with one hand at 16 17 miles an hour. So if I disappear in a minute, you know why. Oh, this is great. Love this so much. All right. At this point, you can go down here. It’s actually a good track. There used to be a little sign on the fence here to Walampton village down there. It says here borrow 2 milesi. Bloody hell. [Applause] That’s not far to go. Certainly flown along. It’s 5:00. I’m doing very well. Hello sheepses. Oh, I hate gates. Pain in the bottom. Two miles. Shouldn’t take us too long. I think there are about six gates. So, we’ll count how many. That’s the first one. Gate number two. And within a very short space of time or very short distance, it’s gate number three. Gate number four, followed by gate number five. [Applause] Self-closing. [Applause] Loads of stingers here. Oh, wow. I think a bit of it has been cut back. It’s grown again. Gate number six. [Applause] Seven. Not sure if that’s the last one or not. This bridge goes over the road that comes from from from from Princetown. No, sorry. That end is from Yelbertton to Prince Town. [Applause] Gate number eight is already open. Thank you. Gate number eight. Two more gates are here. So that gives you a total of 10 gates at the end of the ride. Unless you go clockwise. And of course that’s them at the beginning of the ride. How bloody wonderful. [Applause] That was definitely the last gate. Now be careful when you come down here. Because there’s a road you need to stop. All clear. Right. Take a left down here. There are various ways of getting back down to the reservoir. I thought I’d come down here today. Heat. Heat. Coming down this way back to the reservoir, you go past the lovely waterfall on the right, which I shall show you just in here, which isn’t actually far from where you go to where the ice cream band is. A little bit further along, which we’ll be doing in a minute. Not sure how well you can see this. It’s quite dark in here. I’ll zoom in. [Applause] Well, that’s nearly the ride over. Just got to go back to the reservoir. We do the stats when we get there. I’m pleased with my new top. Really comfortable. Don’t look too fat in it, so that’s good. Well, it’s 13 milesi. It wasn’t that much. I normally do when I do the whole route is 16 miles. 16 to 17. Well, that’s the ride. Another ride over with. What have we got today? Uh 13.2 miles in the saddle for 1 hour 28 minutes. Average speed 9, which is pretty good. Average cadence 69, distance 13.26. As I said, that’s it. That’s today’s ride over with. Be happy and stay safe.