Route: Starting by finding Sustrans route 6 out of the town and then across country over the M1. Then a diversion from it on country roads to regain it, and make rapid progress, as it followed a paved disused railway line. Briefly lost in Melbourne, before finding quiet roads to reach Repton for coffee, just outside the town at the rather disorganised Repton Tea Rooms and to the backdrop of public school cricket. Again following Route 6 to Ashbourne, descending into the town and then mistakenly taking the tunnel underneath it before having a pint (and eating lunch) inside a bunting-strewn Smith’s Tavern. Afterwards, oever the hill (that the tunnel cuts off) to find the start of the Tissington Trail: a smooth cinder rising very gradually up hill for 13 miles, at first in trees then open in beautiful Peak District countryside, to reach a tea stop at Parsley Hay junction near the top of the Tissington Trail (ice cream, tea in disposable cups, tea cake or Twix). Finally after the last few miles of Tissington Trail, a beautiful ride in via Earl Sterndale in bright evening sunshine with steep ascents and descents to reach Buxton
Conditions: Cloudy sun giving way to a bright and sunny evening.
Pubs: Smith’s Tavern, Ashbourne, for Jennings Cocker Hoop, Marston EPA, Ringwood Forty Niner and later Nat’s Kitchen, Buxton, for Buxton Brewery Buxton Bitter and (later still) Thornbridge Jaipur IPA.
