Nottingham - Manchester

So far, I have only done this once and it was a very challenging ride taking me through the Peak Districts. The route goes up into Bulwell town centre, through Bulwell Hall Park into Hucknal. When you arrive in Hucknal you carry on towards the North of Nottingham through Sutton in Ashfield and carry on to Chesterfield. It is recommended that you do not stop when you get to Chesterfield and keep a steady cycle on into the Peak Districts.

The Peak Districts as the name suggests has loads of ascents and descents, when you are cycling it seems like there are more ascents rather than descents but as the saying goes what goes up must come down. During the winter this route is not advised by me, I might just try it some time in the winter though just to see what it is actually like, although my Racing bike may need to sit this one out. The hardest part I found of the journey myself was getting into the Peak Districts from the Nottingham side.

I do not mind ascents that are steep and short, but when they go up fairly steep and go on for miles that is when the hill gets tiring. If you can make it into the Peak Districts then you should be ok. Although saying that, you may get stuck on Winnatts Pass which is the Steepest road in the Peak Districts, personally I found this road quite easy, it is really steep but the whole road only goes on for 1 mile. I wouldn't be suprised though if the majority of people actually disagreed with me saying it is easy though. After all that hill is famously used in most races that go through the Peak Districts as an elimination hill to filter out the good cyclists. If you are doing the cycle leisurely and not in a race you may want to get off and push up hill, if you stop peddling for a split second you will be back down the hill again.

Once you have got up Winnats pass it is all pretty flat from there until you go down hill into Hyde and on to Manchester city centre.

On this ride I do highly recommend that you take some food with you and also some liquid. You can never really count on any of the shops in the Peak Districts being open when you want them to be. Also be very careful with the traffic, it may not be a very busy route but one mistake with the traffic in the Peak Districts could easily cost you your life.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=105339101836651782704.0004881cf710d1949a820&ll=53.212612,-1.702881&spn=0.564979,1.234589&t=h&z=10

As with all my routes that I put on this blog please ask any questions that you may have and I will try my best to answer them as soon as possible.