Hi

Somewhat sadistically I’ve decided to try to commute in from just south of Dronfield to work in Sheffield city centre. I’ve ridden a bike twice in 6 months :-/

Can anyone recommend a good route that avoids too many nutters and/or makes the horrible climb on the return journey any easier?!

Thanks!

makes the horrible climb on the return journey any easier

Think of it as a nice climb and it’ll be ten times easy straight away.

is there a way up through the park* from Woodseats (*the name of which i forget)

“just south of Dronfield”

Go on, admit it, you live in Chesterfield 🙂

😆

I commute from Beauchief and tend to go from Bocking Lane down / up Abbey Lane, through Eccy woods, along Eccy road and get off at Waitrose. Its not the fastest route but is the most cycleable and seems the least congested.

Abbeydale Road and Chesterfield road have too many parked cars / buses in the bus lanes. There are cut-throughs by Brincleiffe Edge / Nether Edge but it breaks up the riding.

Not Chesterfield! Ghetto-Unstone actually.

In my defence we were first time buyers/had few options/no money

I’m also not sure whether to commute on the roadie or the hybrid with discs- light weight versus the ability to stop :-/

I live ‘just south of Chesterfield’ (not Wingerworth….) and regularly used to ride to the Northern General and Hallamshire, over the tops and straight down Abbeydale road always worked out the best way. The lower part isn’t a great deal of fun but in reality no way into the centre will be.

LS – what route did you take to get to Abbeydale?

I see some crazy fools spinning down the A61 bypass regularly. It doesn’t look like a good idea :-/

Up onto the moors either over Wadshelf to Owler Bar, or up through Cutthorpe/Barlow to Owler Bar, then down the other side.
I tried loads of different routes in/out and would often go the longer ways (Ringinglow, Rivelin etc.) if I had time, but for speed that was the best. Never used the A61 but did occasionally go through Dronfield to the ring road, can’t say it was much fun.

Ah ok. It hadn’t occurred to me to go that way at all. I’d still have to plod through Dronfield though.

It’s more the whole Abbeydale or Chesterfield road bit that I’m least looking forward to. Being so, so unfit at the moment I’m really dreading the climb up Chesterfield road to Meadowhead, if I go that route :-/

where in the city centre? i ride in from Greenhill to Park Square (ish) so can give specifics if you’re coming in this way.

here goes with something more useful…

from Unstone I’d follow backroads to join Meadowhead just north of the big roundabout on the ringroad then follow chesterfield road into the centre. you won’t be flying along but you won’t be going fast anywhere between you and the centre.

On the way home you’ll need a very small amount of MTFU but neither homebase hill nor the climb up to meadowhead is that bad (I reckon they’re both easier than the climb you did on the way in in the morning)

good luck with the riding in. Chasing cars up hills is a good way to build some fitness

MrNice – I work near the fire/police museum. We shall see what happens tomorrow!

The only bit of Chesterfield road I really don’t fancy is where the contra flow is from KFC up to Halfords – there’s no bus lane and traffic is usually stationary!

I’m now starting to wish I’d ridden my bike since doing the coast to coast in September – two stone overweight and squeezing into Lycra in the morrow :-/

bit late for you now, but you can avoid much of that bit of chesterfield road (on the way in) by turning off onto shoreham street which will bring you out at the leadmill. The bad bit on the way home seems to be woodseats which I don’t have an answer for apart from leave early or late.

Being so, so unfit at the moment I’m really dreading the climb up Chesterfield road to Meadowhead, if I go that route :-/

It’s not as bad as it looks, that climb. Especially as you get a rest through Woodseats.

It’ll kill you at first, you’ll be demoralised and you’ll hate it. But like all climbs it will get smaller every time you do it, as will your waistline, and before you know it you’ll be blasting up there. You’ll still feel like you’re dying, but you’ll be going a lot faster. And one day surprisingly soon you’ll notice that at some point you got fit again.

Well, that didn’t go quite to plan.

Mini RRR (3 months old) decided to wake us hourly throughout the night. I couldn’t face riding in and back with so little sleep :-/

Tomorrow! Hopefully

It’s cheeky, but there’s a nice path through Carr Wood and up past Lees Hall Golf Club which avoid the worst of the uphill grind – I always approach it along Albert Road but there might be a better way.

On the other side of the dual carriageway you can go past Hazelbarrow farm – some BWs around there, but heavily used by horses and likely to be churned up until the next drought. Also there’s a BW that DCC has closed “for repairs” for the last two years. Worth exploring when you’ve got a spare evening, but not whilst wearing shorts and a t-shirt…