The Peak District is home turf for Manchester-based British pro riders and has been the formative terrain of top domestic riders for decades. Adam Becket finds out why it’s so effective
Riding up Snake Pass is taxing at the best of times. The gradient is not savage, but it works away at you, exhausting you long before you reach the top. It might not be an A lpine or Pyrenean monster, but at nearly 7km it’s about as long a climb as you get in the UK. Add in the incessant traffic – this is the most direct route bet ween Manchester and Sheffield, after all – and the surrounding beauty barely eases the pain. And yet, this is where I find myself, on a freezing day in late 2023. A lovely day out in the Peak District.
Approaching through Glossop, Derbyshire, the weather doesn’t appear too bad, but as the road starts to rise and twist, I pass through freezing mist and the rain begins to hit my face, rendering my sunglasses useless. I’m here thanks to Jake Stewart, who now rides for Israel-Premier Tech, who sent me one of his regular training routes for me to try out. This wasn’t just an opportunity to test myself against Stewart ’s benchmark, but also to figure out why this region is one of the best training grounds for British pros. Why I decided to do it at the end of October, on a particularly grim day, is another question.
The route begins in New Mills, in the High Peak, where I stayed the previous night in an inn which felt very gothic, isolated on the moor. It’s punchy from the beginning, with every k ilometre pedalled early on done so with the k nowledge that Snake Pass is to come.
The nastiest climb early on is Briargrove Road, 1.1km at 9.6% . It certainly wakes me up, and gives my biggest sprocket a workout early on. At this stage, the weather is nice, but as I delve deeper into the Peaks, the rain sets in, inevitably.
Every driver that passes me appears to regard me with suspicion – why is this man slowly pedalling his way round the Peak District today? I’m far from a professional, but I feel like I’m kick-starting my training, and getting a feel for what British Cycling riders do routinely. According to former GB coach Monica Greenwood, who now rides for Coop-Repsol, bad weather has its upside around here: “On a nice day ever yone comes here, so that ’s the good thing about riding when the weather is poor, especially if it’s mid-week .” Well, the good news is that I’m certainly alone on my bike. W hen I hit the lower slopes of Snake Pass, I’m not only battling the weather, but also motorists, and the gradient. It’s all adding up.
Snakes and ladders
“It’s pretty crazy, it’s basically a race track,” Greenwood explains, speaking to me a few weeks after the ride. “I remember in lockdown, when you could go out, there were motorbik
