Right folks, could do with some suggestions…

At a Sunday wedding in Matlock for the bank holiday weekend. Saturday free day pre-event. Plan is to take a couple of pals for a wee MTB spin who are not regular riders.

Was thinking this is not far from the peaks, might be a good destination? I’ve done a few days there over the years so familiarish with the usual loops. What I need is a place to hire a couple of hard tails and suggested route for folks who are reasonably fit but 0 levels of gnarr-core.

Any recommendations for hire / route?

Cheers

Alive bike hire is a good place to hire a bike. They’ve got a selection of Genesis hardtails. They’re right next to 18 Bikes in Hope (in fact, they’re in the old 18 Bikes shop).

http://alivebikehire.co.uk/sample-page/

You could pop into 18 Bikes too

If you really don’t want to scare them, there is bike hire on the High Peak Trail, at Middleton Top, which is right nearby. Hybrids or cheap mountain bikes though, nothing you’d want to ride off road*. It is a boring flat railway path (as long as you don’t go towards Cromford, where it is a boring steep descent then slog back up a railway path), but great views on a nice day.

Otherwise, I think you’d have to go Dark Peak to hire proper bikes.

*although if you are mean, you could take them round the back of Black Rocks etc. where it is a bit technical in parts.

How about hiring from Fairholmes and pootling round res then if they’re up for more ‘core, show them some real mountainbiking and do the climb up to Lockerbrook via fire road and the descent north back to res?
Or maybe the one south back to the carpark just over cattle grid which is a little easier?

Great stuff, knew you wouldn’t let me down 🙂