Peak District Cycle 2016
June 18-19th 2016
100 mile cycle
Day 1
Gain - 4525 ft
Distance - 51 miles
After all the racing, this weekend I fancied something different. I decided that it would be a bright idea to catch the train to Sheffield and cycle home over two days. Thankfully, a friend of mine agreed that this did indeed sound like a reasonable plan (I'm sure she later changed her mine!) and said she would join me.
Packing my bike, I realised that this would be the heaviest load I had cycled with to date, as I had yet to tour with a tent! The tent itself was fairly poorly attached as the carabinas I had were a little large, but it looked like it would stay put. We set of from our houses early on Saturday morning, meeting at New Street and catching the train to Sheffield, a journey of about 1 hr 15 mins. Once we arrived, we stocked up on food (I bought an *enormous* Cornish pasty which was to easily last me all day) and made a quick loo trip (for 30p, humph) before departing from the station.
Unfortunately, despite testing it the night before, my borrowed Garmin Edge 500 decided that now was the time to display its first ever "route invalid" message, leaving my friend and her much swanker Garmin Edge 1000 to do the navigating. Inevitably navigating through a city is difficult, but we were soon on our way and following Sustrans Route 6 through Endcliffe Park and Whiteley Woods out onto open land. I have walked along this route previously when hiking from Sheffield to Hathersage so I remembered that it was an uphill gradient. However, it felt much worse by bike! By the time we reached Porter's Clough (where there is a scenic viewpoint) we were both out-of-breath. Breakfast was feeling a long time ago, so I had a quick nibble of my pasty here too.
Climbing continued past Ringinglow and the Ox Stones to a high point, before some downhill relief with stunning views of the climber-ridden Stanage Edge. A less pleasant and more steep downhill brought us rapidly to the Ladybower Reservoir dam, where more pasty was eaten before the relatively flat section around to Hope. Upon leaving hope we were faced with a three-mile climb (there may have been some walking involved - our bikes weren't geared for heavy panniers!) up to Bradwell Moor and an old quarry. The quarries around the Peaks seem rather ugly, and this was certainly no exception.
A more enjoyable descent followed, ending up at Miller's Dale. Here, the Monsal Trail passes through, and we found a very bike-bike friendly setting to refresh ourselves and have a welcome ice-cream. There were lots of people here, taking part in "Eroica Britannia" - a three day festival based in Bakewell. Part of this is a bike ride, and when we left Millers Dale we seemed to loosely follow this all the way to the Tissington Trail. Our relief at reaching the trail was palpable. After so much up and down a flatter section with good surface was very welcome. The start of the trail was particularly nice as it was less busy, with fantastic Peak views.
As we went on, the trail got busier and busier - with a disproportionate number of small boys in red t-shirts, whose teachers didn't seem very in control of them sprawling all over the trail! Pleasingly, it also gradually got more downhill, and towards the end of the day we were almost freewheeling towards our campsite, "Ashbourne Heights", which was just after Tissington.
On arrival, we pitched up the tent and then I treated myself to a quick nap before dinner - it had been a long day! Dinner was had at Ferry Bentley, about a mile away (through a field of very curious cows) and involved a combination of duck and vodka. And that was just the food...
Day 2
Gain - 1870 ft
Distance - 49 miles
After a surprisingly chilly night's "sleep", we made a reasonably early start, packing the damp tent up and stowing it *slightly reluctantly) on the back of my bike. Although similar in distance, I knew that today was a much flatter day, with most of the climbing occurring at the start of the ride - out of Ashbourne. The end of the Tissington trail came sooner than expected, but gave us just enough time to reconnaissance ourselves (and more importantly, our bums) with our bikes again, and settle down before we got to Ashbourne.
Ashbourne itself sits in a valley, and every time I have driven through it has been extremely busy. However, on a Sunday morning at about 9 am it was pleasantly empty, and even following the slightly convoluted Sustrans route wasn't an issue. This took is fairly quickly up hill through a couple of housing estates and out onto some lovely Derbyshire countryside. Twee villages came aplenty, and contrary to yesterday we actually had enough energy to really enjoy the scenery too. The country roads were quiet and reasonable well surfaced, and the terrain could be described as lightly undulating.
This continued for about 15 miles until we got to Rolleston-on-Dove, where we found ourselves slowing slightly. The reasons for this were twofold; we were going gradually uphill, and also we were getting rather hungry! Our fairly meagre breakfast of jaffa cakes and cereal bars was a long time ago, so I decided to aim for Barton Marina at just after halfway, for a cafe stop. Here we treated ourselves to a breakfast baguette each (including sausage, bacon, eggs and black pudding) as well as a hot chocolate and large biscuit. All in the fantastic setting of a canal marina. Indeed I have previously done (and won my age group at) a triathlon here - not in the canal I should add!
From here onwards the route was very familiar to me. I regularly ride this part of Staffordshire, heading from Barton-under-Needwood accross the A38 and River Trent to Walton-on-Trent and then going southwest via Catton Hall and Whittington. Although very flat (indeed some of this area is known locally as "The Flatlands" with its almost fen-like characteristic) this section of riding was still fairly tough. Unlike yesterday, today's wind was prevailing and hence a solid and increasingly strong headwind. In addition to this, Staffordshire County Council had decided that this was a great day to patch the roads around Walton-on-Trent, with the unavoidable fresh patches providing lots of warm tarmac to stick to our tyres. This didn't mesh well with my low-clearance mudguards, or indeed our desire to remain puncture free for the trip (we did) so I did make a couple of stops to de-tarmac my tyres once we were through.
From Whittington it is almost uphill all the way (the flatlands are around 70 m in elevation, I live at around 170 m), with a familiar route skirting us around the edge of Lichfield and through Wall and Stonnall to get home. We had made good time over the day, getting back for early afternoon, and a very welcome shower awaited. I even managed to pitch the tent, allow it to dry and most importantly remember to bring it in just before it rained...Success!
Times
Day 1: 05:02 (9.6 mph!!)
Day 2: 04:08 (12.5 mph)
100 mile cycle
Day 1
Gain - 4525 ft
Distance - 51 miles
 |
| Leaving Sheffield |
Packing my bike, I realised that this would be the heaviest load I had cycled with to date, as I had yet to tour with a tent! The tent itself was fairly poorly attached as the carabinas I had were a little large, but it looked like it would stay put. We set of from our houses early on Saturday morning, meeting at New Street and catching the train to Sheffield, a journey of about 1 hr 15 mins. Once we arrived, we stocked up on food (I bought an *enormous* Cornish pasty which was to easily last me all day) and made a quick loo trip (for 30p, humph) before departing from the station.
Unfortunately, despite testing it the night before, my borrowed Garmin Edge 500 decided that now was the time to display its first ever "route invalid" message, leaving my friend and her much swanker Garmin Edge 1000 to do the navigating. Inevitably navigating through a city is difficult, but we were soon on our way and following Sustrans Route 6 through Endcliffe Park and Whiteley Woods out onto open land. I have walked along this route previously when hiking from Sheffield to Hathersage so I remembered that it was an uphill gradient. However, it felt much worse by bike! By the time we reached Porter's Clough (where there is a scenic viewpoint) we were both out-of-breath. Breakfast was feeling a long time ago, so I had a quick nibble of my pasty here too.
Climbing continued past Ringinglow and the Ox Stones to a high point, before some downhill relief with stunning views of the climber-ridden Stanage Edge. A less pleasant and more steep downhill brought us rapidly to the Ladybower Reservoir dam, where more pasty was eaten before the relatively flat section around to Hope. Upon leaving hope we were faced with a three-mile climb (there may have been some walking involved - our bikes weren't geared for heavy panniers!) up to Bradwell Moor and an old quarry. The quarries around the Peaks seem rather ugly, and this was certainly no exception.A more enjoyable descent followed, ending up at Miller's Dale. Here, the Monsal Trail passes through, and we found a very bike-bike friendly setting to refresh ourselves and have a welcome ice-cream. There were lots of people here, taking part in "Eroica Britannia" - a three day festival based in Bakewell. Part of this is a bike ride, and when we left Millers Dale we seemed to loosely follow this all the way to the Tissington Trail. Our relief at reaching the trail was palpable. After so much up and down a flatter section with good surface was very welcome. The start of the trail was particularly nice as it was less busy, with fantastic Peak views.
As we went on, the trail got busier and busier - with a disproportionate number of small boys in red t-shirts, whose teachers didn't seem very in control of them sprawling all over the trail! Pleasingly, it also gradually got more downhill, and towards the end of the day we were almost freewheeling towards our campsite, "Ashbourne Heights", which was just after Tissington.On arrival, we pitched up the tent and then I treated myself to a quick nap before dinner - it had been a long day! Dinner was had at Ferry Bentley, about a mile away (through a field of very curious cows) and involved a combination of duck and vodka. And that was just the food...
Day 2
Gain - 1870 ft
Distance - 49 miles
After a surprisingly chilly night's "sleep", we made a reasonably early start, packing the damp tent up and stowing it *slightly reluctantly) on the back of my bike. Although similar in distance, I knew that today was a much flatter day, with most of the climbing occurring at the start of the ride - out of Ashbourne. The end of the Tissington trail came sooner than expected, but gave us just enough time to reconnaissance ourselves (and more importantly, our bums) with our bikes again, and settle down before we got to Ashbourne.
Ashbourne itself sits in a valley, and every time I have driven through it has been extremely busy. However, on a Sunday morning at about 9 am it was pleasantly empty, and even following the slightly convoluted Sustrans route wasn't an issue. This took is fairly quickly up hill through a couple of housing estates and out onto some lovely Derbyshire countryside. Twee villages came aplenty, and contrary to yesterday we actually had enough energy to really enjoy the scenery too. The country roads were quiet and reasonable well surfaced, and the terrain could be described as lightly undulating.
 |
| A very pretty house |
This continued for about 15 miles until we got to Rolleston-on-Dove, where we found ourselves slowing slightly. The reasons for this were twofold; we were going gradually uphill, and also we were getting rather hungry! Our fairly meagre breakfast of jaffa cakes and cereal bars was a long time ago, so I decided to aim for Barton Marina at just after halfway, for a cafe stop. Here we treated ourselves to a breakfast baguette each (including sausage, bacon, eggs and black pudding) as well as a hot chocolate and large biscuit. All in the fantastic setting of a canal marina. Indeed I have previously done (and won my age group at) a triathlon here - not in the canal I should add!
From here onwards the route was very familiar to me. I regularly ride this part of Staffordshire, heading from Barton-under-Needwood accross the A38 and River Trent to Walton-on-Trent and then going southwest via Catton Hall and Whittington. Although very flat (indeed some of this area is known locally as "The Flatlands" with its almost fen-like characteristic) this section of riding was still fairly tough. Unlike yesterday, today's wind was prevailing and hence a solid and increasingly strong headwind. In addition to this, Staffordshire County Council had decided that this was a great day to patch the roads around Walton-on-Trent, with the unavoidable fresh patches providing lots of warm tarmac to stick to our tyres. This didn't mesh well with my low-clearance mudguards, or indeed our desire to remain puncture free for the trip (we did) so I did make a couple of stops to de-tarmac my tyres once we were through.
 |
| Home! (less pretty) |
From Whittington it is almost uphill all the way (the flatlands are around 70 m in elevation, I live at around 170 m), with a familiar route skirting us around the edge of Lichfield and through Wall and Stonnall to get home. We had made good time over the day, getting back for early afternoon, and a very welcome shower awaited. I even managed to pitch the tent, allow it to dry and most importantly remember to bring it in just before it rained...Success!
Times
Day 1: 05:02 (9.6 mph!!)
Day 2: 04:08 (12.5 mph)
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