The Lost Lanes

With our Restrap bags, Quad Lock mount and Ordnance Survey maps ready we were set to go!

We’ve been carried along by the growing trend in the cycling world. Having always been a pair of keen cyclists we have recently joined the masses and bought a couple of gravel bikes. Not a road bike, a mountain bike or anything else in between for that matter, a gravel bike is a dropped handlebar bicycle suitable for many different surfaces. Maybe it’s the perfect piece of adventure equipment or maybe its just a fad! Over this year we’re going to taking our bikes around the U.K. having two-wheeled exploits and you’re welcome to join us! Stay tuned for more posts, videos and photos as we can get out and about post lockdown. If you’re interested in knowing more about our gravel bikes then let us know in the comments and we’ll make a video for you.

For now we had to turn our focus to some local peregrination to start our gravel bike life. We’re based in the the heart of the National Forest in the midlands with many wooded areas, bridleways, tow paths and sustrans routes accessible to us. We were eager to explore some of these on our new bikes so we opened our Ordnance Survey maps and with Komoot we plotted a route. You can follow the route using Komoot here.

We got our kit together and set off along the Trent and Mersey canal heading east towards the village of Willington. The ground was soft and smooth as we briskly made our way along the still brown waters, over an modern aquaduct which took us over the River Dove bringing icy water down from the Peak District and under old long forgotten humpback bridges with no affixed roads standing alone like forgotten monuments of a supressed memory. The red bricks of the bridges glistened in the spring sunshine which was warming up as the minutes ticked by. Soon the path widened and the sun was peeping through the bare branches that now towered over us. A small narrow path to the right took us over some pools of still water and out into the sunshine and right to the edge of some railway tracks. We pushed our bikes up some metal steps and rested at the top of a flat bridge. Within seconds we’d gone from the still, peaceful tree lined canal to a graffiti lined, urban looking railway bridge. The contrast was stark and just added to the beauty we’d found so far.

We dropped down the other side of the bridge and skirted around the edge of Willington, a busy village along the Trent and Mersey canal with some great pubs and a fantastic marina. Our planned route down took us over the River Trent and its floodplains and into the ancient Mercian capital of Repton. We wound our way through the village and passed its famous school, church and out towards Lawn Bridge where we left the road and headed steeply uphill along Red Lane towards Loscoe Farm. The elevation gradient peaked at 11% so as we pushed ourselves towards the summit our legs burned and our lungs ached from the effort. We stopped at the top of the hill to catch our breath and admire the view. From this lofty perch we could see far and wide across the rolling hills of South Derbyshire. We stood against a farm gate and marvelled at the green landscape before us. To our left was the heavy, dark woodland of Repton Shrubs and directly below us was the winding road we’d been cycling along a short while ago. In front of us was miles and miles of flowing, rolling, lush green countryside. It was bewitching and so very tranquil.

The narrow lane ended where a bridleway began, and the loose gravel under our tyres crunched and popped as we cascaded down like water over rocks. We found ourselves at the northern tip of Repton Shrubs as we continued on a wide, compact gravel track. With open fields to the left and tall pine trees to our right we climbed steeply along the woods edge before descending back downhill. The ground beneath us changed from compacted gravel and pebbles to loose sand. With views of Foremark Reservoir to our right our bikes plunged into the deep powdery loam and our tyres became orange as the biscuit cinders flicked up and spritzed our bikes and legs. The soft surface at the end of the bridleway stopped us in our tracks as our bikes dug in deep to the tawny turf. Our route then took us along the road at the bottom for a rest stop on the edges of the aforementioned reservoir. Here we sat on a bench snacking on trail mix and looking across the water towards the tree line of Repton Shrubs from whence we came.

Once back on two wheels we exited the reservoirs car park and made our way to a bridleway across the road. This wide, pebbled track took us uphill to begin with through a working farm and onto fields. The bridleway route was along the edge of huge open pastures lined with short hawthorn hedges which framed our route like a natural grid.
The sun was shining down on us now, and with only a occasional large tree erupting from the hedgerow like a giant among a crowd of commonality, there was little shade. The ground here was more mud than gravel and the puddles that we’d avoided for much of the ride were now in our path. We skirted around them with minimal grace and followed the path towards Bendalls Clump, a small broadleaf copse with a secret hidden jewel. Hanging from a great beech tree like a pendulum, was a rope swing. We have few rules as rules tend to restrict liberated adventures, but one rule we do follow is, if there is a rope swing it must be swung from with endeavour and without fear. So we dangled, pivoted and swayed mid air but mostly we laughed!

From here we followed the trail down into the pretty village of Milton. A mix of farmsteads and cottages along the road which would take us back into Repton and from there we’d continue back into Willington.
Here we’d stop for food. In normal times i’m sure we would have stopped in a canal side pub for a well deserved pint and a bowl of chips, but these days it was a trip to the Co-op for a vegan sausage roll and a bag of cookies.

We deviated from our planned route here and took the canal tow path back to our starting point as it’s rarely dry along that path and we wanted to seize the firm terra whilst we could. Otherwise we would have taken the road way home through some typical cottage lined villages and back home.

Gravel biking might be the trendiest genre of bike riding right now and conjures images of beards, flannel and mid-ride coffee stops, (isn’t this us anyway??), but we’ve fallen in love with the whole premise of it.

Our first gravel bike adventure was perfect. The sun shone, the gravel grinded and the bikes bombed along carrying us through woods, rolling hills, farms, canals and villages. We have a number of trips planned throughout England and Wales for 2021 on our bikes so keep an eye on our Instagram for more two wheeled ventures.