Actually yesterday’s ride, but finished a bit late!
So, I set out after working from home to cycle home. As the lockdown eases, traffic levels are gradually rising and main roads are starting to revert to their normal unpleasantness. Pondering what opportunities remain, I decide to go up the Cat & Fiddle from Macclesfield, which is not a lot of fun at rush hour normally. Off I go, full of enthusiasm engendered from a wonderful sunny, albeit a bit chilly evening.
The climb of the Cat is a delight, views of Cheshire and far beyond opening up with the steady but never overly demanding gradient and almost bereft of motor traffic. A roadie flashes past, all gristle and carbon fibre, and I tell him I hate him with a smile on my face, though I’m not entirely sure he realises it’s tongue in cheek! Summit approaching, the Wrekin and the Long Mynd are clearly visible into Shropshire, and Welsh hills unknown - the Berwyn perhaps. It’s reputed you can spot Liverpool Cathedral from up here, and there is a blob on the horizon correctly located just left of Fiddlers Ferry power station. Perhaps.
It’s far too nice to turn back, so I go down the main road to the edge of Buxton. Again, normally hideously busy, but a real pleasure tonight into a stiff breeze, then a right up Axe Edge, a road I’ve rarely been along and a bit of a drag. The White Peak stunning in the sunshine, I press on left down to Glutton Bridge. These back roads are a little known gem of the Peak District. The route plunges down a tricky gravel strewn descent between the fossilized remains of two coral reefs, Chrome Hill and Parkside, arguably the only actual peaks in the entire District.
At the base of Parkside I pause for pictures.
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It’s a spectacular spot and lambs are gambolling around too. Onwards through Glutton Bridge:
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and thence to Hollinsclough and the ascent of the Rake.
This is a truly vicious climb, but rewarded with stunning views of the reefs, particularly Chrome Hill, so I use the excuse of more pictures to take a breather.
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I’ve forgotten, or more realistically erased, all memory that the hill kicks up again, every bit as painfully as the first part, and arrive at Flash Bar on my last legs. The sun is getting low and the air frigid, so I switch to full winter crab claw gloves and liners too, anticipating the long descents to come.
Back over Axe Edge towards the Cat a large raptor rises up from the heather to my right, zips across just in front then circles low over the moor before alighting a few hundred yards away. Once near here I’m sure I saw a Hen harrier hunting, and a pair used to nest nearby in the Goyt valley, though I don’t know if they do still. It stands in the heather, but far too far away to identify, most probably a buzzard. I stop and wait for the magnificent bird to take off for a few minutes but its patience and the freezing wind get the better of me and I set off again, shivering.
The descent of the Cat on this side is, inevitably, somehow once again into a stiff head wind, but I take the turn off to Lamaload Reservoir, a beautiful lonely road where the bluebells are still in their prime high up here in a wooded dip. Finally the last ascent of the day looms, the aptly named “Deadman’s Hill”, so called after a local legend chiselled into a stone set half way up the climb. The views open up North and East, Kinder Scout glowing in the evening light. Ten miles or so of almost entirely downhill or flat lie before me and I thrill to feel the wheels beneath me as I swoop back to the Cheshire plain, finally arriving home just as the sun is setting.
I feel I should be able to do this without feeling quite as drained as I do, but Strava reassures me that I’ve done nigh on 50 miles and 1,500 metres of climbing, so I can be justified in my exhaustion. A near perfect evening ride, which would only be improved by the addition of my normal Thursday night club co-consiprators. Maybe next month.
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