Peak District Cycling

Description

The Peak District is a remarkable place. In the north, there is the Dark Peak with its upturned horseshoe of high, gritstone moors and crags, descending southwards to the east and west of a limestone plateau into the softer, pastoral landscape of the White Peak itself incised by the valleys of the Derbyshire Dales. These differing landscapes offer some of the best country lane cycling in Britain. The Tissington, Manifold and High Peak Trails are some of the longest converted railway tracks in the country and are a great way for families and inexperienced cyclists to enjoy traffic-free cycling. Despite a long and complex history stretching back through the Romans to prehistoric times, until relatively recently The Peak remained a wild, upland region, unknown to all but a few outsiders. The growth of the great industrial conurbations surrounding it, and the associated development of the railways changed all that – though it was appropriately the development of the bicycle that gave the workers the freedom to escape from the noise and pollution of mill, factory and steelworks to the clean air of the hills. In 1951 The Peak became Britain’s first National Park.