Bike – GNT – Hayfield south to Peak Forest and Hayfield north to Monks Road

April 2026

Day 1 – 28.04.26 – Hayfield, heading south towards Peak Forest
Wot no bike?
I had been told that there would be several sections of the Great North Trail that, as a blind rider, may be beyond my abilities. This would prove to be the first one.
The previous afternoon, after arriving early at the Hayfield campsite, Rhona, Molly, and I decided to carry out a quick recce of our planned route. (As it was less than 100m from our campsite, it would be rude not to.)
As soon as I set foot on the trail I knew I was in trouble. Not only would I not be able to bike this, but I also had major trouble just walking on it, with rocks, roots, drops, and steps, this was tough. Our 1.7km recce took us over 2 hours to complete, and by the time we got back to the van my head and eyes were trashed. I needed a new plan.
So, instead of biking it, we would do a full route walking recce. Over the next two and a half hours I stumbled, tripped, wobbled and swore, (a lot), until reaching 7kms, (approximately 5km short of our planned end at Peak Forest), and then turning around to do the same back to Hayfield. There was no way that I would be able to cover the majority of this section on a mountain bike, on my own. For pity’s sake, I could hardly walk it, even with Rho’s amazing patience and guidance. This section would have to be put down as “walking” and not “biking”. Momma told me there’d be days like this.

Day 2 – 29.04.26 a.m. – Hayfield heading north to Monks Road
This morning we had a great ride, heading north from Hayfield. With Molly in the van and the sun coming up, our goal was to push on for 60-90 minutes, before turning around.
The forecast was good, with winds of around 11mph predicted.
As we passed along the southern side of Kinder Reservoir, we were sheltered in the trees. However, once in the hills on the opposite side, things got a bit blowy. At one point Rho and I were struggling to stay on our bikes, with the wind trying to blow them out from under us. On more than one occasion I had to lean my body at almost 90 degrees into the side wind, whilst trying to stop my bike from blowing away in the opposite direction. (We found out later that the wind had been gusting at over 40mph!!!)
After 80 minutes and 7.25km of some wonderful biking, we hit a tarmac road, (Monks Road), and decided that this would be a good point to turn back.

Day 2 – 29.04.26 p.m. – Peak Forest heading south to join up with Day 1
Once back at Hayfield, we loaded up the van and headed to Sweet Knoll campsite, just outside Peak Forest. From here we biked down to Peak Forest and then out to where we had finished our walk on the previous day. It was a pretty straight forward bike ride, on some very “Dean friendly” roads and tracks, covering 6.24kms in a little over 45 minutes, before turning around and heading back to the van.
Another wee bite taken out of our GNT adventure.

 

GNT (one way) kms: 19.51
Total (round trip) kms: 41.94