Manchester to Sheffield:  Crossing the Peak District on a Brompton G Line

I’ll admit to some mixed feelings as I hoisted my G Line onto the luggage rack and took a seat in the empty train carriage. I’d be riding alongside the Peak Divide – over 300 hundred runners, who were aiming to complete the distance on foot. Cycling from Manchester to Sheffield seemed embarrassingly easy in comparison. But I’ve lived round here long enough to know that any Peak District cycling route holds its challenges, especially if it’s off-road, and although 90 kilometres isn’t far by some standards, this would be the longest ride I’d attempted on the G Line. I had no idea how I – or the bike – would cope. 

A vivid rainbow curved down into the Hope Valley as I gazed out of the train window at the landscape I’d be riding through the following day. Was this a good omen? A moment later the hills disappeared into clouds, and I realised it might be the opposite.

I met my fellow Bromptoneers at the start and marvelled at how each of them had customised their bikes. Luke’s was hung with bespoke bikepacking luggage, complete with a dangling mug. Shona, an ultra-race veteran, had packed efficiently into a small waterproof pouch. Chi had a capacious front pack that over the course of the weekend yielded an improbable number of layers. Charlie’s spork and water bottle were neatly strapped onto his stem. 

Manchester felt worlds away as we ate our pasta at the lunch stop, surrounded by dark, angular hillsides and alternate bursts of rain and sunshine – but our overnight stop at Edale seemed equally remote. We carried on, up severe gradients that even the strongest of us couldn’t ride, encrusted with bulbous stones that sent our wheels this way and that, and meant that even pushing the bikes was hard – then a gorse-lined singletrack ushered us down to Hayfield, and an irresistible ice cream van. We told ourselves our interest was mainly historical – this was where the Kinder Mass Trespass started, almost exactly 94 years ago. 

Our calves burned and our puny cyclist arms throbbed with exertion as we worked our way up the final big climb, commiserating with mountain-bikers who were also pushing – and ignoring people on e-bikes smugly trundling smugly past. The clouds blew away, and by the time we reached the summit the sky was blue, the hilltops glowing green and golden. 

We rode, pushed and carried our bikes down Jacob’s Ladder, where drystone walls funnelled us onto an elegant 1600s packhorse bridge: a reminder that humans travelled this way long before the bicycle was invented. And then we joined hordes of tired hikers, heading down to Edale for a pint, a cuppa, a train home or a night in a campsite. 

I woke up as the sun hit my tent the next morning, casting a Brompton-shaped shadow over my sleeping bag. Perhaps this was the reason I’d slept so well – with the bike folded up in my porch, I hadn’t had to worry it might be stolen during the night. 

The day was already warm as we slipstreamed each other along the quiet road between Edale and Hope, then turned onto an initially rideable path that wriggled its way across the hillside, twice descending to cross small rivers, through which we variously carried and rode our G Lines. 

We re-encountered the Peak Divide at Hope Cross, on an ancient road that once linked the Roman forts at Glossop and Brough. Today it witnessed an invasion of brightly clad runners, cheered on by five people on a folding bike adventure, and curiously regarded by hikers, dog-walkers and e-mountain-bikers. You always have company in the Peak District, and that’s one of the things I love about it. The ridgelines are busy with people on foot and on wheels, climbers, paragliders, and all sorts of others. Many will have come by train from Manchester or Sheffield for the day, others from further afield. You can be in the Hope Valley two-and-a-half hours after leaving London St Pancras. 

We skirted Ladybower Reservoir, encountered traffic for the first time as we carefully crossed the main road at Bamford, and then set off upwards again, cheered on by a group of Sheffield lads on a day out. The magnificent slabs of Stanage Edge loomed on the horizon, and the long gravel climb up to the skyline proved unrideable for a couple of us, though whether that was because of tired legs, or the limitations of the G Line’s gearing, no one liked to say. 

We laughed out loud when we saw the tight, twisting route by which we were supposed to descend, and carefully carried our Bromptons over the rocks, only to discover that most of it was rideable. Passing walkers cheered us on as we thundered over the gritstone slabs and down chutes carved by generations of feet. Our lunch stop was on a high, windswept moor – and then, moments after we got back on our bikes, Sheffield appeared beneath us, just as Manchester had the previous day. 

I was on home ground now, on trails I’d habitually cover on a lunchtime loop, and it felt wonderfully surreal to see them at the end of a long journey. We passed local teenagers in full-face helmets as we hurtled along the mountain bike trails in Lady Canning’s Plantation, and nodded at dog walkers as we skidded down the vertiginous gravel of Clough Lane. 

The ride ended as it had started, following a watercourse that led into the heart of the city. This one was the Porter Brook, one of five fast-flowing rivers that powered the grinding wheels of Sheffield’s cutlers as early as the 14th century. 

These days Sheffield is known as the Outdoor City, and it really did seem as though half of its population had turned out to welcome us. More than once, we stopped to chat to someone who had clocked our folding bikes and wanted to know where we’d ridden them from.  

“Manchester to Sheffield on a Brompton? Is that even possible?” 

And we all talked over each other in our eagerness to tell them how much fun we’d had.