Trans Pennine Trail

In the past, we have done a few day trips on our bikes from Liverpool. One of the perfect places to go is the Trans Pennine Trail (TPT), which has a branch passing less than a mile from my house. This trail runs from the Irish to the North Sea, needless to say that we only do a small part of it in a single day.

Last weekend, we set out to expand our knowledge of the trail. It is very difficult to take bikes on long-distance trains in the UK, so the thing to do was to only go a few stops (to Warrington Central Station) and then to see how far we get. Well, ok. We naively booked a room at the Dog & Partridge Inn in the Peak District. I initially wanted to go further, but luckily there was a wedding in Penistone, such that C picked a place that was quite a bit closer. Turns out that the Peak District is actually quite far away if you are cycling. And that the trail is often not paved, but muddy and ever so slightly uphill ... Finally, in November, you have limited daylight and it is pitch black by about 5 pm.

We discovered well before lunchtime that daylight was going to be a slight problem with our plan, but pushing all day on Saturday did not really help the cause and we ended up in the dark, just below the highest point, facing either an unknown (but steep & gravely) trail or a main road with lots of traffic to get to our hotel. We argued that the road was going to be the lesser of the two evils. Very scary. On the other side of the pass, it was definitely a memorable experience to do something slightly north of 50 km/h downhill on a bicycle, without really being able to see much except the oncoming cars in the right-hand lane. We made it in the end, in one piece (each), and were exhausted and in bed by 8.30 pm.

Here we are the next morning, working our way back up to the main pass on Sunday morning - in the fog.

As it turned out, Sunday's route (longer, but mostly the same as on Saturday) was much more pleasant as it was really quite a lot of gentle down-hill rolling. We still ended up in the dark before reaching Warrington again, but it was much less of a problem. Overall it was a great weekend, with a lot of the Trans Pennine Trail still waiting. I figure most of it can be done on a 3-day weekend, starting at the North Sea and ending up in Liverpool. In the summer. With lots of daylight. Any takers?