This Good Friday me and my mate are looking at doing a proper big ride as Mountain Mayhem prep, and I thought the easiest way to do something like this would be get a train to an end point and then ride back home.
Whats the riding actually like on this bit of the TPT? I'm not expecting a gnar fest to be honest, but some elevation gain / loss would be nice and as off road as possible also.
You'll be very disappointed with the TPT, especially through Manchester.
How about the [url= http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/pennine-bridleway/leaflets ]Mary Towneley Loop[/url]?
The idea is to ride from somewhere to home, not do a circular route
It's nice through the Woodhead, be a gentle DH gradient, then v flat once you hit Manchester [not sure it ever goes into Cheshire], so the riding across to Liverpool is easy. Not a scenic route, at all, once you're past the M6, but I quite like it - find it interesting.
One problem with it as a training ride is the presence of 1000 restrictor gates. You hit them every mile, more or less - v few stretches that you can really get your head down and tap out the miles. [Longdendale, the St Helens canal, and the old loop line through Liverpool are clear bits on the Western half]
Op where is home?
[i]Penis[/i]tone
tee hee
Mid-Cheshire
[url= http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/pennine-bridleway ]Pennine Bridleway[/url]
205 miles. Pick a stretch. The Mary Townley loop is on the Pennine Bridleway but you don't have to do that bit.
Mid-Cheshire
OK, so you could do a nice big section of the PBW and then leave it near Buxton to head west over the moors to Macclesfield Forest and into Cheshire. Not sure what you'd do from there though 🙂
mid cheshire eh? that well known town. 😐
how many miles are you after Op?
I did hadfield to penistone via the TPT a couple of weeks ago. On my road bike.
Apart from about 2 miles of proper off road at the top of woodhead its mostly old railway and big road climb upto woodhead from penistone