[Closed] Bikepacking.com Peaks route

That looks like Peak 200 ITT route to me. My mate took the fastest known time a month or so ago in 13hr 2mins. It's pretty brutal and definitely mountain bike territory. 2 or 3 days should be fine for most though.

MTB all day for that. Nice route - central Peak ticked off if you do that.

IDK about time really - all depends on the flavour of ride you're looking for. Do you want to chug away all day sun-up to sunset, or restrict things to 5 or 6 hours in the saddle and have a look around the place?
Comfortable schedule might be arrive late Fri afternoon and do 15/20 miles - then the body of the ride Sat / Sun.

Just be aware that the road from Sparrowpit to Peak Forest (91.5 mile - 93 mile mark on that map) is completely closed between 8am and 6pm all this month for filming.
And it's not a case, as some pillock on the Peak District MTB page suggested, of using a multi-tool to take down the chainlink fencing or just asking nicely to wander through; it is properly closed during those hours.

I’ve seen the odd gravel bike/ cx bikeon loads of mtb trails in the peaks. Normally I would congratulate them on their skills and ride off thinking they were mental.

I’d do that on an mtb with knobby tyres to make the off road dh fun and accept the extra work on the flat and roads.

ooh looks interesting. Easier than the original ITT, so more achievable
hmmmmmm

It's mostly the Peak 200 route, misses out some stuff in the south like Gratton Dale (shudder) plus it drops into Hathersage and goes into the centre of Glossop which the Peak 200 doesn't.

Personally I find bikepacking.com's time allowance to be very generous, they'll give three days when two is doable with plenty of café stops. They probably have an X km with Y metres of ascent per day rule.

Rigid or HT 29er would be my ride of choice. There are bits that would definitely be better on a FS but then most of the rest of the route you'd be overbiked.

well - it would either be pretty efficient F/S 29'er (Intense Primer) or Salsa Cutthroat (me - 2.25 tyres) and Salsa Warbird (40mm tyres) for Madame Mort. Am thinking the F/S

Yea, on closer inspection it's not the full Peak 200 ITT. I'd still vote for a short travel 29er full sus.

Depends what sort of day riding you want. You could do it all on 40mm tyres if you wanted to, it'd just be much tougher

well we did it - 2 1/2 days as suggested. So 30 miles first afternoon Hayfield - Baslow, then 45 ish miles Baslow - Castleton and similar Castleton - Hayfield, staying in pubs

We were glad to be on MTB's - gravel bikes would have involved a lot of pushing / stop - start on - off riding. 130mm 29'ers seemed fine. Overtook a few e-bikes up hill

Moving speed was around 8mph, we were out from 10 ish until 6 or 7, fair bit of stopping to check navigation / photos. Surprisingly few cafe's outside the towns. What should have been a fast easy 15 miles or so from the end of Cut Gate to Glossop was a battle into rain and headwind

It was enough for us. 2 days would be do-able but quite a challenge for us, especially as we don't (didn't) know the route. We're reasonably fit (Sally has represented GB in tri and ironman age group) but obviously some people would charge round much more quickly

Did a 60 mile all day ride around some similar trails and that slight uphill from cut gate to Glossop into rain and wind along the bridleway was awful!

Good effort though.

yup - we actually got off and pushed along the road up at one point!

2 days sounds fast in the peak to do this!