Help a brother out here, I haven’t ever done any riding in the White Peak (except the Macc forest circuit) so I go the Vertebrate book and now I’m trying to choose a route.

Any suggestions for the best one on what looks to be a beautiful day tomorrow? I wanted something reasonably long which will keep me out the house for a few hours (Long in the white peak book is not very long compared to the dark peak book though!)

I’m torn between the 5 Dales, Linacre classic and the Rowley Circuit…

5 dales.
The rowsley circuit is just a shorter version of the 5dales. On of the two routes round Linacre in the book is the wrong way round (down roads up lovely looking singletrack) I can’t remember which one though!

I’ll just mention something on the 5dales ride. Once you’ve climbed 2dales from darley dale (lots of dales) you end up on flash lane. This s where the book sends you left towards Rowsley. The first section is lovely. You come out the woods drop down a steep lane then turn right back into woods. They’ve been working the woods here and the nice singletrack has gone! It’s not great now imo.
If you wanted to avoid, or cut short at the top of flash lane go straight across onto a gravel road. This then meets another road. Turn left and desent until you see a very obvious gravel/dirt layby, (road bends to the left)
This is the track back to chatsworth so you can go back to the book route!

I’m doing Linacre on Sunday for the second week in a row. Clockwise, I think it’s a great loop, nothing technical but oh so fast. Won’t keep you out of the house for long though maybe a couple of hours. 5 Dales however is a climbathon if that’s your bag and does take a while. Watch out for horses if you do either of them though!

Brilliant thanks. I think I’ll give the 5 Dales a go then (Don’t want to drive there from Manchester and be heading back too soon).

I’ll have a look at the OS map to see if I can find where you mean MartynS.

The 5 Dales isn’t a bad route, but I live pretty much near where the start/finish is and there is much better stuff available – a bit hard to describe though I’m afraid

Well that was fun although I accidentally missed the first climb and went up the (very steep!) road, got some way up and realised I went the wrong way and turned round to try the off road climb which almost killed me, I pushed up half of it and then I sat at the top wondering whether maybe I should just go back to the car. I didn’t though and managed to ride (most of) the rest.

Worlds apart from the stuff I normally ride round Hope and Ladybower – I really enjoyed the woods, although those switchbacks came from nowhere, my seat was up and I almost went over the bars in to a tree.

AND I saw TWO cuckoos. Never seen one before – top 10 birding moment right there.

A good day out 🙂

Was it the 5dales you did?