Get cycling with Pedal Peak District
May 2010
A project has been launched to get thousands of residents and visitors to the Peak District cycling more often. Pedal Peak District will encourage people who don't currently cycle, or do so only occasionally, to ride a bike in the beautiful surroundings of the Peak District National Park countryside. Once residents or visitors have experienced cycling in the national park for themselves they will be supported to make riding a bike a regular part of their lives by signing up to a website that offers them cycling tips, information and maps of cycling routes, small, manageable cycling goals and prizes for completing them. It also shows the amount of calories burned and other health benefits of bike rides.
They particularly want to encourage people who wouldn't normally think of going cycling. To help them they are running bike confidence, safety and maintenance courses and also offering cycle hire centres.
The national park has 58 miles of traffic free, easy going cycling routes plus many miles of quiet country lanes. The Pedal Peak District project also includes plans to create a new cycling route from Bakewell to Buxton. This will involve re-opening four former railway tunnels that have been closed to the public since the 1960s. Most of the £2.25 million funding will be used to construct the new route, which it is hoped will open in spring 2011. Pedal Peak District is run by the Peak District National Park Authority and funded by the Department of Transport through Cycling England.
Everyone who signs up to the Pedal Peak District website and completes a short survey will be entered into a monthly prize draw to win a bike worth £300. Registration cards can also be completed at the Peak District National Park Authority's cycle hire centres at Parsley Hay, Ashbourne and the Upper Derwent Valley, or any national park visitor centre.
Pedal Peak District website
Directions for the cycle hire centres
