Mountain-bike centres in Wales such as Afan Argoed and Coed Y Brenin received similar praise. We are being shuttled up to the top of the Red Bull-sponsored Project Downhill track at Innerleithen, in the Scottish Borders, which opened last April. A 45lb downhill bike is no more designed to go uphill than a toboggan, so local farmers ferry bikers to the top of the hill at weekends The Uplift service costs about £20 for a day’s lifts. Mountain bikers were restricted to riding on tarmac roads, and one corollary of the outbreak’s impact was that farmers not big enough to weather the storm or battered enough to sell up entirely had to diversify to bring in extra money.
Which, in a roundabout way, explains why I’m in the back of a cattle truck, with a dozen other mountain bikers and their bikes.

Gibson Mill is open at weekends and during school and public holidays Admission: adults £3, children £1. For further information call 01422 844518 or visit www.nationaltrust .uk. Mark Rowe stayed at The Robin Hood B&B, Keighley Road, Pecket Well, Hebden Bridge (01422 842593), which costs from £25 for a single room or £49.50 for a double with breakfast. You may glimpse a roe deer, while seven of the eight British species of bat have been spotted. As you walk along the top of the valley the path forks – you need to keep to the high path. The line of the narrow-gauge railway, which used to carry stone to the reservoirs on the watershed, is clearly visible on the far side of the valley.The path stops abruptly and you need to follow the steps downhill to the river to return towards Gibson Mill. The going can be squelchy and you need to keep an eye out for purple marker posts. After a short climb on a clear path, the track forks – bear left downhill towards a bridge.

Cross the river and bear right uphill to pick up a track that leads behind the crags. Bear left uphill, following the red marker posts into the Shackleton Plantation.The track drops down almost to the estate road and then goes off left, following the red and white marker posts. When you reach a collection of posts, you turn left uphill, following the red posts once again. The path climbs and when you reach a T-junction of paths, bear left again uphill to reach Slurring Rock. The path then drops down, passing farmland and reaches a car park, where you cross the road, walk through a second car park to New Bridge and retrace your steps alongside the river to Hebden Bridge.Distance: Nine miles Time: four to five hours OS map: Outdoor Leisure 21, South Pennines. The trade waned, and the mill was converted after 1890 into a variety of “entertainment emporiums”, before becoming National Trust property in 1956.

It’s well worth pausing a while.Cross the Mill Bridge and bear right, passing the old Mill Pond and a series of weirs and dams. The Hardcastle Crags glare down at you from the opposite side of the river.You may see dippers and nuthatch, along with all three species of British woodpecker, little owls, and, if you’re lucky, the reclusive barn owl. At one point you pass a stepping stone bridge before the high edifice of Gibson Mill appears ahead.Gibson Mill was one of the first-generation mills of the Industrial Revolution. In 1833, 21 workers were employed, each working 72 hours a week. Far above, to your left, a wooded crag pokes out dramatically into the skyline.Turn right through a gate to cross a footbridge over the river. Hebden Dale’s valley walls are so steep that in winter it receives barely 90 minutes of direct sunlight a day.