August 1, 1962
Holmfirth - Ilam Hall
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We had a tough day ahead of us this day too. I remember recounting our adventures to the mother of a friend and complaining that there couldn't be many places as hilly as this. “Have you been to Cornwall?” she asked. I hadn’t then, but my wife and I cycled there the in the summer of 2004 and the hills are brutal. More or less straight after breakfast we were climbing Holme Moss, the moorland divide between Yorkshire and the Peak District National Park. The summit on the road is at around 1700 ft [525 m]. This is nothing in terms of numbers compared to North American or Alpine summits, but it’s a hard ride. The 2014 Tour de France went over it. English hills are not long but are often steep. A TV transmitter marks the completion of the climb. Half-way down the other side both Dennis and I, one after the other, failed to take a bend and ploughed into an escape route, unhurt but a little shocked. We continued to descend onto the main Sheffield – Manchester road. An unavoidable stretch of a few, fortunately short miles, which we shared with lumbering coal trucks, before turning south towards Glossop. The landscape here is bleak and most days compellingly gloomy. The main road was at this point, paralleled by the railway line, now closed, which once passed through the famous Woodhead Tunnel. Much, much later, on this road, I broke my land speed record on the eastern, Sheffield side of the Woodhead Pass. [83 kph.]
The stretch between between Glossop and Buxton was a tough up and down ride. I cycled a stretch of this route in October 2005 with MTB gearing and marvelled at my fortitude as a boy, equipped with a 48 tooth single chain ring and a 14-16-18-20-22 freewheel..
Buxton as well as being an elegant spa town, lays claim to being England’s highest and has the metereological history to back that up. On 2nd June 1975, play in a county cricket match between Derbyshire and Lancashire was abandoned because of snow. From Buxton, on the main road most of the way to Ashbourne, the going was easier. We turned onto back roads, among limestone-bound fields, the White Peak as the area is called, for the village of Ilam and the large YH, impressive for us boys with its tower and castellations.
I have little memory of what the Youth Hostels Association combined to feed us on this trip, except to say, that one packed lunch induced an attack of severe vomiting. [see below]
Today's ride: 79 km (49 miles)
Total: 237 km (147 miles)
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