Why this ride
curated scenic road. moorland, high plateau, curves. 20 km from Macclesfield to Buxton, about 24 min of riding. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Cat and Fiddle Road
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 20 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 24 min
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Cat and Fiddle Road
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 9 km this is Cat and Fiddle Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Rider note
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 9 km
- Named road
- Cat and Fiddle Road
- Pass
- Cat and Fiddle Pass
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Macclesfield
Macclesfield is a market town at the foot of the Pennines, where the Cheshire plain runs into the first hills of the Peak District, and it built its prosperity on silk. From the eighteenth century the town was one of the main centres of silk production in Britain, with dozens of mills powered first by water and later by steam, and for a while it was known as the silk town. The industry has gone, but its traces remain in the tall mill buildings, the weavers' cottages with their wide top-floor windows to let in light for the looms, and the Silk Museum, where you can see the old machines at work.
Read the complete Macclesfield write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cat and Fiddle Road point 1 sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Cat and Fiddle Road point 2.
2. Near Buxton
Near the summit of the A537, at about 515 metres, stands the Cat and Fiddle, a long stone building that was for years the second-highest pub in England and gave its name to one of the most famous and notorious motorcycle roads in Britain. The pub closed in 2015, then reopened as a distillery and shop, and it remains a landmark and a meeting place for riders, who gather in the car park on sunny weekends. Around it the moors stretch away in every direction, brown and purple with heather, with the Cheshire plain to the west and the hills of the Peak District to the east.
Read the complete Near Buxton write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cat and Fiddle Road point 2 comes up 8 km in. Next is Cat and Fiddle Road point 3.
3. Buxton
Buxton is England's highest market town, give or take a rival's claim, perched at about three hundred meters in the hills of the Peak District, and it has the cool, brisk air to prove it. The Romans knew the place for its warm spring, which rises from deep in the limestone at a constant temperature of about twenty-eight degrees, and named it Aquae Arnemetiae. In the eighteenth century the Duke of Devonshire turned it into a fashionable spa, building the great Crescent in the 1780s, a curved Georgian terrace modeled on Bath.
Read the complete Buxton write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
20 km in you reach Cat and Fiddle Road point 3.