44. A trip to Hathersage

Monday 21^st August 2023

Today’s trip was a Veloviewer tile-gathering expedition once more.  I’d originally planned to go to Ingleton, but for some reason, the hostel there was quite expensive for the days I wanted.  Of course, the term ‘expensive’ is relative: the bill for two nights’ accommodation was £58, whereas the YHA at Hathersage was just £35.40.  I could include two full English breakfast (unlimited food at breakfast, you will remember) for less than the total fee at Ingleton, so that’s what I did.

I’m missing a few Veloviewer tiles around Manchester city centre, so I found a route that would cover some of these.  Of course, this involved a lot of busy roads, but most had a dedicated cycle path which helped.

I got lost at a point when my route suggested I went through a locked gate onto the Ashton canal near Piccadilly.  Coincidentally, when I was last in Manchester, I was asked by a chap who was opening the locks for a friend navigating the same stretch how to reach the canal at that point.  I couldn’t find a way through then, either.  But at least on a bike, I have alternatives, and quite quickly I was back on the route towards Sport City. 

I had a sandwich in Philips Park which is beside the National Cycling Centre.  The last time I visited here was in early August 2002 for the Commonwealth Games track cycling events, when the stadium was brand new.  It still looks pretty smart now.  After a break, I continued East along the canal (I found it eventually) and then headed South (into the 20mph wind!) towards Chapel-en-le-Frith. 

I felt the need for caffeine at this point, so I diverted into a garden centre near Broadbottom for a coffee and scone.  A waitress collared me as I walked in and asked what I wanted.  An order for a cappuccino and a scone was placed, and later delivered to me at an outside table.  The huge coffee was accompanied by a very large scone with jam and clotted cream!  It was lovely, but I didn’t order cream and I thought I’d be paying dearly for it.  Not so.  The price was very reasonable and perhaps explained why the café was packed on a Monday lunchtime.  The café also had a dog’s menu which also seemed very reasonably priced. Recently, I had the need to ask what a babyccino was. From that reply, I can now deduce what a Puppuccino might be. I wasn’t about to order one to check, however.

This establishment is now included on my ‘places to eat if you’re passing by’ list.  (They also had a very attractive special offer on wheelbarrows, but I would’ve struggled to schlep one home from there.)

I bypassed Chapel (well, if you can, you will, obviously) which meant tackling a climb up from a village called Wash.  I’ve done this climb twice before, but both times on a lightweight road bike.  Today, with panniers, the hill seemed much steeper and longer.  It was slower, certainly, even though I had a tailwind at this point.  Once over Rushup Edge (and down Winnats Pass), it was plain sailing to the hostel.  There were two incidents on the pass, both sheep-related, but neither resulted in the catastrophe that might have ensued.

The hostel is lovely: very small and quaint, and since I was first in the dorm, I had pick of the beds and obviously selected the best.  This hostel is old-fashioned in many ways; one of them is that it is shut between 10am and 5pm.  But it has a traditional drying room which I am hoping not to need.

I had a very good meal at the George Hotel just 200 yards from my hostel.  It is a huge place and when I arrived about 7pm, there were plenty of tables.  Plenty of dogs too; all well behaved and very friendly.  I ate in the bar rather than the restaurant and had a (disappointingly  small) portion of hummus and pitta bread followed by a (gratifyingly large) calzone which was delicious.  It was raining when I left which took me by surprise.  Only a very short walk home, however.

I covered 73 miles today but at a very slow pace – about 11.5 mph.  I blame city-centre cycling and a strong Southerly breeze.  I can’t really blame the weight, since I’m only carrying 4.8kg of luggage today.  There’s a similar weather forecast tomorrow, but my route then zigzags all over the place so the wind penalty should even out.

Tuesday 22nd August 2023

After a huge breakfast, I was heading out to grab some more missing tiles in this region.  My route took me East initially, although coincidentally, some of the tiles I was seeking had already been covered in a walk over Totley Moor at the weekend!  It was too much hassle to re-plan the route, so I just stuck with it.  One tile involved hiking up a dirt track – I could have ridden, but it was easier to walk.  However, when I uploaded the ride, although the device on my bike told me the tile was entered, Veloviewer begged to differ.  This is one I need to return to…

The weather forecast was for dry conditions today, with a 15 -20 mph SW wind, gusting to 25mph on the tops.  I can vouch for the wind.  It made for hard going for much of the day.  It didn’t help that after lunch in Bakewell, it began to rain.  Not enough for waterproofs, but sufficient to make me concerned for my phone getting wet. I was also turned back by a road closure. I ignored the first two signs, but the third gave me cause to think. I was about to descend a couple of miles into Beeley, but the road closed sign gave no indication just where the closure was. I might’ve been able to get through, but if not, I could have been two miles down a steep descent before needing to turn back. I cut my losses and took an alternative route to miss out Beeley (and incidentally, a favourite coffee shop of mine).  

It was 1:30 by the time I reached Bakewell. The town was heaving with tourists as usual, so I avoided the obvious places and made for an hotel just on the way in (or out, in my case). I’ve stopped at the Rutland Arms before, and I know there’s plenty of space for my bike and the food’s good. The rain had stopped by the time I reached Taddington (10 miles later).

I was back at the hostel by 5pm and showered and rested by 5.45 when I had a text from Emily asking if I fancied joining her and Ellis on a walk to view the sunset near Hathersage.  I hadn’t yet decided where to eat tonight, and since the pub they were planning to start the walk was only 10 minutes walk away, I decided to join them.  We had a lovely walk, although I turned back after half an hour since I had an appointment with a steak pie at the Scotsman’s Pack at 7.15.  The meal was as good as last night, so everything worked out well.

Wednesday  23^rd August 2023

Another fine breakfast at 7.30 set me up for the day, and by 8:30 I was packing my bike ready to go.  The weather wasn’t as good, with a bit of rain in the air and I’d only cycled for a few miles before giving in to the waterproof.  In less than a mile on the road I had begun the first (and largest) climb of the day and so it was a bit warm in the jacket.  After a couple of diversions (for Veloviewer tiles), I met a rider in Little Hucklow who cycled with me for a while.  It turned out he was an engineer who had worked on Typhoon at Warton as a contractor for a few years from 2006.  I abandoned my waterproof after he peeled off near Tideswell.

After Tideswell I was cycling on very quiet roads for an hour until I reached Whaley Bridge when the traffic resumed.  I stopped for a banana before tackling the climb out of the town.  It isn’t that steep but drags on for over a mile, and after a morning of similar climbs, I was ready for a bit of flat riding.   I got this as I approached Hazel Grove (on roads I was very familiar with) and my average speed slowly began to increase as I passed beneath the airport flight path through the towns South of Manchester.

In Gatley, I came across a handy coffee shop so I stopped for a sandwich, but I was out of luck.  From the outside, it looked like an up-market coffee house, but when I got inside, I realised that it only seemed to sell breakfasts in various forms – full English, veggie, all-day, in a bun, in a baton… You get the picture.  It did sell cakes and tray-bakes as well, so I ordered a cappuccino and a flapjack.  The flapjack was outstandingly good – just not big enough.  The coffee wore a fancy layer of chocolate art sprinkled on top.  I’ve no idea what it was supposed to represent, but to me it appeared to say the word ‘sad’.  Perhaps it was just the barista’s reflection of his view of me as a customer. 

When I restarted the Garmin afterwards, it told me that I was off the route.  Then it told me that it had lost its satellites (in which case, how did it know I was off the route?)  Anyway, after a bit of faffing, I got it working again, but every so often, it would lose satellites for a few seconds before re-finding them.  This was annoying, and since I was heading through the badlands of Wythenshawe, I felt that I needed the route at all times.  Feeling that the Garmin might die at any moment, I began tracking the journey on my phone as a back-up.  It turned out to be a useful action since the Garmin stopped altogether a few miles later.  I didn’t actually need the route at this stage, so I ignored it for a bit.  Then I decided to do a reset on the Garmin by turning it fully off then re-starting everything again.  It worked after this hack, but I still kept Strava running on my phone.

I’d chosen a route home along the Guided Busway into Leigh, leaving the track before Leigh town centre and following a route up into Westhoughton.  This wasn’t a good move, since the road was narrow and uphill and the traffic was heavy since it was approaching rush hour.  I abandoned the planned route altogether in Westhoughton and followed the A6 back home since it was starting to rain and even felt like it was going dark at 4:30.

It took an hour the next day to sort out all the different stretches of the ride recorded on assorted media so that I could report a single distance for the day and not ‘double up’ on mileage.  The distance for the day turned out to be just over 78 miles which is my longest ride of the year so far.  Over the three days, I covered 214 miles but more significantly, climbed 4,700 metres (over 15,000 feet).  I was fortunate with the weather: just an hour or so of light rain on Wednesday morning and a further hour of heavier rain at the end of the ride.  The next trip is already planned for September, but I need to finesse the routes to make sure I will capture all achievable tiles. This might annoy my two cycling companions on the trip, but I’m sure they’ll get over it.