Stockport Routes

Also for a bit of hilliness, you could head east.   Up through Marple /Glossop into the Peak District,  then a choice of several loops of varying length.  Hayfield/Chapel-en-le-Frith for a short one; or Snake pass then Edale or Castleton for a challenging one.  Monks Road from Charlesworth to Chunal has cracking views.

Also lots of interesting stuff between Macc and Buxton.

If a bit of gentle off-roading is your thing, the Peak Forest Canal is lovely

You have a few options.  Probably the best, if you like hills, is to head over to Adlington via the back roads and then cycle up Brookledge Lane and Bakestonedale Road.  It's a popular hill, quite steep in places, with fantastic views at the top.  There isn't much traffic up there so you're usually on your own for a bit.  Or you can go through Pott Shrigley and pick up Blaze Hill, which is shorter and steeper.  And from either of those two roads you can head over to Pym's Chair, or down towards Macclesfield Forest, which has some fantastic climbs.

Or you could head along Buxton Road to Whalley Bridge and go up Long Hill.  That's another very good climb, not steep but long, a good wide road with a decent surface.  From the top you turn west to the Erwood Reservoir and find an amazing climb up to Pym's Chair.

Buxton Road out of Stockport is very busy but for the most part it's a very wide road with great visibility, so I wouldn't worry about using it.  I've bombed along it loads of times down into Stockport and hardly ever had any issues.