Looking for something a little different for a club ride, been around the area plenty barely covering the same trail twice. But thinking the road descent would be pretty awesome and add some drops etc which you don’t get so much of elsewhere.

The road descent is a waste of time. There’s a couple of drops to flat – they’re not exactly exciting IMO. If you must do them you may as well stop on the way up.

If you really want to ride down the road then there’s a footpath half way down (after all the broken bits) that leads back up to Hollins Cross. Might as well push up that. Although like I said, don’t bother.

Personally I’d find those drops plenty exciting – as in you must be **** joking that is massive – but I speak as part of the stw lumpen mediocriat when it comes to skills. Even if 6 foot drops to flat are nothing to get excited about in your group, it’s still a unique section of ‘trail’ in that area.

As far as routes go it would bring you into Castleton heading E, so depending on where you started, either straight through to Hope and Ladybower stuff, or up Dirtlow Rake and back Westwards via Roych. Or down Cavedale and climb back out on the broken road.

I have an old climbing guide that has a diff going up the the face of mam tor, people have been down it on skis so you should be ok on a bike.

You’re in the middle of Hope valley – home to arguably the best mountain biking in the UK and you’re doing drops onto a super-wide flat bit of tarmac?

What you’re really asking is how you get to the top. You could ride up Winnats, or up Pindale and Dirtlow Rake or up Cavedale or up to Mam Nick from either Hollins Cross or direct from Edale, but least awful option is probably along Rushup Edge then down from Mam Nick and a short section along the road. One option would be to tag it onto a classic Jacob’s Roych loop. From the bottom there’s the bridleway out of Castleton up to Hollins Cross, which is sometimes quite rideable. Or the back road to Hope. Or the main road to Hope. Where are you starting from? How much time do you have?

And no, I probably wouldn’t bother riding down the broken road either, but it’s an interesting thing to look at anyway.

Fair enough, seems like it’s probably not worth the effort afterall!

I’ve tended to use the broken road as the climb out of Castleton…

It’s a quick way of getting up to that end of Rushup from the Hope/Castleton side. Why not ride up it and then if people want to ride off big tarmac cliffs on the way they can?

If you’re in Castleton and have done the other routes in the area, it’s quite a nice challenging roadie-rough-stuff type climb. And when you’ve done that, see how many cars you can overtake going down Winnat’s pass, especially the ones that just had to get past you before the cattle grid. The look on their faces is priceless (apparently) 8)

A couple of mates and I did a Christmas epic a couple of years back starting in Castleton. Up the broken road to hollins cross. Down the backtor bridge descent. Jaggers clough to hope cross. Down the beast. Up hagg farm. Down lockerbrook. Lunch at ladybower inn. Back up Hagg side. Down hagg farm. Up to wooler knoll. We were then intending to reverse jaggers clough to edale and back up to hollins followed by the barely used bridleway descent into castleton.

However we bailed down the Roman road into hope and finished on the road.

The 60mph plus headwind we rode up the broken road into had taken too much out of the legs by then.