Dale Abbey is one of those places in which an unfeasible amount of history, beauty and interest is wrapped up in an area you could skim a stone across. I had decided a few weeks back to do a trip out there, picking it because it was a relative short (10 mile) cycle and could be done in an evening. As it happened, the evening I’d planned to cycle was booked up and I ended up doing it on a Saturday, but that worked out well because the weather was perfect.
I set off in late afternoon, about 4pm – I’d been very kindly invited to a BBQ-and-birthday-party earlier, which meant that I was well fuelled-up with protein and carbs…and also needing to justify eating them in the first place!
Date: 6th August
Length: 20 mile round trip (10 miles each way)
Time: 1 hour 50 mins (55 minutes each way
Route Out: Via Riverside and Borrowash
Route Back: Via Spondon and Chaddesden (If you like – I went the same way out and back!)
The route actually took me along the riverside (the river in question being the Derwent), a place I know very well and part of the Route 6 and the Route 54; now those who looked at the map above and read my previous Mini-Cycle Adventure Blog, Kirk Hallam and Spondon, will see that I could have gone via Spondon and simply turned off earlier to get to Dale Abbey.
THE INTREPID CYCLIST 