Phantom cars and hitchhikers appear in ghost archives quite often, but a ghost on a bicycle is rarer. Eyam Dale and the adjoining Stoney Middleton Dale are said to be haunted by exactly that: a cyclist who races silently through the valleys, sometimes seen and sometimes only heard, always gone before anyone can be certain of what they witnessed.
The accounts are varied and come from multiple witnesses. Two brothers walking up Eyam Dale leapt aside to avoid a cyclist hurtling down the steep gradient, and when they turned to say something about his riding, the road was empty. On another occasion, a man walking alone at night heard the distinct swish of rubber tyres and the ringing of a bicycle bell, moved out of the way, and nothing came. A man and his wife, hearing a cyclist approaching from behind on Stoney Middleton Dale, stepped aside just as a Chesterfield service bus rounded a bend and swept its headlights along the road. There was no cyclist there.
The most striking account concerns a keen cyclist labouring up Eyam Dale one very wet day, soaked through and making hard work of the climb, who was overtaken by another rider who pulled effortlessly away. The passing cyclist’s cape was bone dry.
Sightings are most often associated with Top Scrin, at the top of Eyam Dale, where the gradient is steepest.
