Are either of these any good? Re the rowarth circuit - its 13km - what are the options for extending it?
Hi Rob - Rowarth is my local ride from home route - options for extending it are to go into Hayfield and then north up the bridleway east of the A624 coming back on to the route near Blackshaw Farm. Or go south of Birch Vale and head up onto the Chinley Churn route but go east towards the A624 rather than west towards New Mills. Or you could easily connect the two circuits together. Of the two I prefer Rowarth to Disley.
How far is the disley circuit? The dark peak is the one I haven;t got as it's my home turf!. I wouldn't mind betting you can link the two easily, they're not far from each other - I'm guessing that the Rowarth circuit involves a passing near the fox Inn @ Brookbottom, from there you can go to strines and up across the canal to disley
Think the routes cross at Wethercotes near the strange farmhouse with all the abandoned vehicles and the dogs that used to chase me 😥
wethercotes? Oooh that's a new name to me, map time!
Ahh, I know it, we know it as Barking Dogs Farm. The dogs are still there but are now tied up
james - guide on saturday?
Yes fortunately the dogs have been tied up for a while cos I used to hate riding past there!
Would love to Rob but going to CYB this weekend
Disley is a bit of a gruelfest - I love it, Rowarth is a shorter blast, and basically a good short evening ride - and yes they meet at mad dog farm, (dont call in and ask for your camel back to be filled up)...second edition of Dark Peak - i'm working on it now plans to extend Rowarth...
Let me know if you need a route testing Jon 🙂
Give us a shout if you;re out riding Jon, that's my doorstep that is 🙂
jamesgarbett - send me an email - jon@v-graphics.co.uk and i'll put you on the list, Julian - i'll tap up your grey matter for ideas - since moving from new Mills i've tried to forget as much as i can about the place!
I extend this route via Hayfield and the shooting cabins, makes this a nice figure of 8 loop.
If you then use the cheeky climb in the field of horny cows at the bottom of Lantern Pike, you don't go past the scary farm at all.
Crikey I've been riding that cheeky climb for years without knowing it was cheeky - I think the footpath signs may be wrong
It's cheeky inasmuch as it's not recorded as a bridleway on the official map. However, it is an old cart track, and MartynS once bumped into a couple of horse riders on it who said they were the landowners and had no problems with bikes using the trail.
Ah OK that makes sense - I've been doing that climb for about 15 years and seen loads of horses and bikes on there and never had a problem with a walker