A Harder Day in the Peaks

9th March will be positively tropical. I'll be on my 650c summer triathlon bike wearing only speedos knee-length socks, and a pointy hat.

You have a unicycle and a 650c tri bike?!

Different audaxes require different bikes.

I vote 2nd of March

I’m in for this. Don’t have fixed so I’ll be on gears.

Not quite the cyclist I was a year ago so I’ll mostly be in 36x28 anyway.

Can I just say it would be remiss of us not to use the newly resurfaced A54 at Wildboarclough. Seriously fun bit of road from the Cat and Fiddle into Cheshire towards the Roaches.

Don’t have to kill yourself getting up there if you do Long Hill plus Goyt Valley one-way.

I'd also vote 2nd

Plenty of time to build up a fixed road bike!

Due to the lack of response I'm going to assume everyone's ok with the 2nd of March and update the first post.

2nd of March works for me

Tempting though it may be, straight there and back without putting in any other interesting stuff would put us over 100k. By the time March rolls round there could be other interesting newly resurfaced roads which give a lot more options.

Plenty of time to build up a fixed road bike!

... Or purchase a cheap SS kit and chain tensioner?

Turning up on gears is kinda missing the point of the ride. What forum is this?

@alialias will ride :)

Rode a longer, but similar amount of climbing (though much gentler gradients) route through the peaks last weekend:
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/29132456

Was ruined, even with gears, and hurt my knee. So now I'm putting together a plan to ramp mileage and fixed climbing before 2nd March.
The prospect of this ride fills me with excited dread

Is it 2nd March, starting from Sheffield? Might be good to start an event/ride thread with all the details.

Yep. Could do with finalising a route first.

So, this weekend's HDIJ was a great success, but not as hard as usual so it seems pertinent to turn our attention to this ride.

Train ticket prices from London to Sheffield for the 2nd of March are currently fairly reasonable so would be good to get this nailed down before it gets too pricey...

What's the plan? Does someone have the route planning in hand? Committee planning won't work here, or it will never be finalised.

Are we planning things around a start time (from a particular location in Sheffield) and a rough end time and location (hopefully at a pub not far from a train station that serves the majority)? This will help us southern softies figure out logistics.

I've never been to the Peak Distrcit and deperately want this to happen.

What he said ^

What he said ^ ^

not as hard as usual so it seems pertinent to turn our attention to this ride

Not sure I like where this is going ;)

Re route there've been plenty of suggestions over the last couple of pages. It largely depends on whether we do a circular route out from Shef or ride to a predetermined destination. Problem with the latter is that it will have to be somewhere well connected so everybody can get home ok.

Was there any partiuclar issue with this route?

Looks appropriately silly in places but has enough corners to cut if things go array/individuals run out of legs. Was there anything stand out that makes this unworkable?

Likely a loop out from Sheffield makes the most sense? An A to B could come next year when it's proven this endeavor can be a great success in spite of being organised on the forum and has some heritage to it... Keep it simple, make it work...

I think a loop is a good idea.

That road down from the top of mam nick to winnats seems to have fallen away but should be walkable I guess

I'm going to gear properly low for this

Excellent. A loop from Sheffield (not far removed from The Seldom Killer's suggestion) on the 2nd of March it is then?

Team Londres could get on the 06:30 to get into Sheffield at 08:48. Would meeting at Sheffield Station for a 9:20 (allowing time for hello's etc) roll out make sense? Fairly priced evening trains are at about 19:00 but there was earlier talk of maybe making a weekend of it, which team London can work out the viability of amongst ourselves over the next week(ish)...

Either way, good reports of the pub in Sheffield station as an end point.

There's also the Rutland Arms nearby. Great beers, big beer garden.

Sounds good. Can someone provide an overview of the route (distance/total ascent) as it won't open on my phone?