Tour of Yorkshire 2022. Day 1 York to Helmsley

Day 1 York to Helmsley

Once again its time to leave the relative flatlands of Norfolk and head to more bumpy scenery up North. The purpose of this trip will be to see how the average cycle cafe stop in Yorkshire compares to the average ones in my local domain. Last year I used science to compare the two areas but this did not go to plan or lead to the awarding of the Nobel prize for science as I expected, so I clearly need to up my game. 

To do this I have developed a more sophisticated model, increased the sphere of cafes to be tested and packed an extra cycling guest for more accurate cafe ratings. Science doesn't get better than this and I think the Nobel prize is in the bag.

I've done the maths and of the 297cafes I have reviewed in the Norfolk and North Suffolk region then their average rating is 6.90. Can the 8 cafes I have selected to visit here this week beat that. Well lets find out.

The route covers the North York Moors and the Yorkshire dales.

The route. Stars are cafes and houses are overnight stops

Today we left Norwich at a respectable 8:30 with me and Andrew (who is notourisly hard to please) in one car and Ali and Big George in another. This is a cycling trip so lets pick up the story from when we have parked up in York, faffed about packing and re packing bikes and eventually set off towards our first cafe stop a few miles away. And don’t forget what goes on tour stays on my blog.

My group of finely tuned cycling guest ready for le grand depart.

We made our way out of York into the suburbs where todays only cafe stop would be. It was the Curious coffee company cafe (CCCC) in Haxby shopping precinct. We had hoped to sit outside but someone had fainted in the heat and were hogging two of the outside tables as staff and customers gathered round with ice and water to try and revive her. Fortunately I managed to shuffle them up a bit and we could then squeeze on a table so no harm done.

I waited until after the fainty lady had gone to take the cafe photo

But how did the CCCC compare with one of my regular cafes. Apart from fainty people cluttering up tables and it being in a 1970s style shopping street then Atmosphere and Ambiance was good thanks to the friendly staff and pleasant vibe. My hot chocolate was very good (for some reason they said they hadn’t sold many hot chocolates today) and not Cadbury’s of which most of last years Yorkshire cafes provide 🤮.

My hot chocolate and double decker brownie

They had a very brownie biased cake selection as apparently they were famous for them and you could also have them with chunks of chocolate bars on top. I was torn between Bounty and Double Decker (which I didn’t realise was still a thing) but then remembered Bounty’s are horrible so went DD. It was nice but not spectacular.

Big George, the only coffee drinker, didn’t like his drink so all in all CCCC scored 6.92. Which was 0.02 better than my standard cafe average. On reflection I thought it was probably 0.02 better proving that science got it right again.

From here it was a mere 34 miles and 3 small climbs to Helmsley on the hottest day of the year and boy did my cycling guests whinge about the heat. I don’t like to talk about it but I was forced to remind them that I once did an Ironman in 40 degree heat, although that didn’t seem to help.

Cycling Guests whinging about the heat

However we did enjoy some typical Yorkshire villages and lovely views so they did agree it had been a fine afternoon of cycling really.

Personal highlight was seeing castle Howard where Brideshead revisited, Downton, Bridgeton and every episode of Antiques road show were filmed. None of which I’ve seen although I am a fan of Fiona Bruce who I believe lives there.

From here it was just a short ride in Helmsley and the prolog of the tour was over. Tomorrow we start the ride proper with some big hills to climb and 2 cafes to visit on another warm day.

Todays route

Trip Stats

Route	Miles	Average Mph	Time on Bike	Metres climbed
York to Helmsley	38.40	13.4	2:51:50	484
Helmsley to Great Broughton
Great Broughton to Hawes
Hawes to Pateley Bridge
Pateley Bridge to York
Totals

Cafe ratings

Cafe	Hot Chocolate Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Cake Selection	Cake Taste Quality	Atmosphere and Ambiance	Total
Curious Coffee Company, Haxby	7.6	5.5	7.1	7.4	7.0	6.92
Hutton le Hoe
Danby Bakery
The Mustard Tree Café, Hurworth
No.15 Coffee House, Barnard Castle
&Then Tasting Deli, Kettlewell
Tea on the green, Bolton Abbey
Café Chez Nous