Peaks & Puddles
Continuing the celebration of local leisure cycling highlights on the western Peak District borders, part two takes us from Goyt’s Moss to Lyme, with some flatter inspiration for this year’s rides along the way thanks to Monsal Trail and the Cheshire lanes.
January — it’s cold, it’s snowing, it’s wet. The perfect time take your feet off the pedals for a moment, to plan ahead, to decide what you want your cycling year to look like. As a little inspiration for those brighter times in the year ahead, here’s an A to Z of local cycling highlights… both the peaks and puddles.
When Robert Largan claimed on his Facebook page and a local media column last November that “after extensive lobbying” he had secured a £1.7 million investment in “local cycling and walking”, he was sadly being somewhat loose with the truth: it has now been confirmed his own High Peak constituency won’t receive a single penny from the money given to Derbyshire.
Derbyshire County Council has confirmed Whaley Bridge and Chinley will be the first locations in the High Peak in line for a new bumper crop of cycle parking stands, to be installed across the county after money was ring fenced from the first round of emergency Covid-19 active travel funding.
Derbyshire County Council has finally disclosed details of the bids it made for over £2 million from the government’s Emergency Active Travel Fund, intended to provide quick wins to improve walking and cycling conditions — and it’s good news for Chesterfield at least.
Middlewood Way is closed for four weeks just north of Bollington Viaduct as Cheshire East undertake resurfacing and improvement works to the trail, part of NCN Route 55, which runs from Marple to Macclesfield.
The Peak District National Park has announced two weeks of temporary closures for parts of the Monsal Trail, the former railway line from Bakewell to Millers Dale, near Buxton.
Two more nearby Bee Network schemes are taking a slow step forward as Stockport launches an interactive comments map for their Heatons and Romiley active neighbourhood schemes, aimed at reducing car dominance to improve walking and cycling.
This flood-prone rural bridleway on the very edge of Greater Manchester has just had a second round of major improvement works, extending the Flexipave surface begun in 2018 and fixing the drainage problem at the heart of its woes.
Stockport Council has finally shared plans for the borough’s first Emergency Active Travel Fund pop-up cycle route, designed to provide a safe route parallel to the A6, just a few days before works are due to begin on the ground.