I have a fair bit of local knowledge of that track, if you know what I mean – & it’s luck of the draw really. Of course, I’d never dream of riding it occasionally to miss out the narrow potentially dangerous stretch of the old turnpike road between Grindle & Hathersage.
However, I would imagine that on a sunny weekend day, there’ll be quite a lot of walkers, families with small kids, dogs etc. You might also be unlucky and meet the miserable Daily Fail/Express/Telegraph reading self appointed rangers who live in one of the houses at the Grindleford station end, and/or the other one that lives in the big house by the river towards the Hathersage end.
I would imagine that pre 10am or post 4:30pm might be quieter;) If you do decide to ride it when it’s busy, just use some common sense, ride really slowly past people, wave and say hello – spread the good karma😊
It’s a real shame that there isn’t a bridleway along the valley bottom between the villages now, especially as I think this track is one of the historic road/tracks that ran between the villages to avoid the toll road (now the narrow main road). I don’t know if there’d be any chance of getting it reclassified on the basis of historic use & road safety – I think the NT own the land, but have tenants farm it.