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Your UK's hardest hill climbs?
I have been riding some of these on my travels, but which hill climbs do you recall as being real challenges?
Applecross this evening, Hardknott a week ago, Honister, Gospel Pass..
Some are simply pigs,to be conquered, some are just beautiful, some may combine both.
Thoughts?
Applecross this evening, Hardknott a week ago, Honister, Gospel Pass..
Some are simply pigs,to be conquered, some are just beautiful, some may combine both.
Thoughts?
Comments
Would love to do Bealach na ba one day, supposed to be tougher than Hardknott? was it?
Gospel Pass I found okay and the view was very rewarding.
Winnats is hard too.
Bwch y Groes is extreme and unforgivingly the straight. Hilarious gradient arrows: << < < < < < << < <
I'd love to do Bealach na ba one day as well.
The huge, looming, near vertical mountains stand ahead & to the right & as you wend your way around and over the shoulder of the lower slopes above the lovely sweeping bays below, you are confronted with the full vista ahead & to the left, vertical cliffs rearing up from the meandering stream below you.
It is an epic scene, especially if the weather gods are with you, last night the cloud base was around 3,000ft, so the vistas were huge, almost Tolkeinesque in its scale and brooding malevolence, since the further into the valley you cycle, the more the sense of being inextricably herded into the dark mountains it becomes, trapped as you are on both sides by almost sinister, unfriendly looking mountains with a clear idea of the valley somewhere ahead.
As with the Hobbits of the Shire, there is a more overriding mission to complete, that of conquering this most feared (?) hill climb, the tales of its savagery are legion, such that the experience of relatively easy gradients come as something of a surprise. There is no descent at all on this ascent, no flats, nowhere to hide, with poor weather, this would change ones ride considerably I suspect.
6.3 miles to the top car park, and still turning the pedals in the middle ring up to 4.66 miles, at 36 minutes,no one was more surprised than I, really the gradient only becomes apparent that it's ramping things upwards once you gain sight of the switchbacks 800 yards ahead; only then I got into the granny ring.
Truth is, without battling into a not insubstantial headwind, racing as it was, headlong, unopposed into your body, down the valley from the crest somewhere above you, stronger riders would manage this, I suspect, the whole way with no granny ring; me, we'll, no zigzagging, no out of the saddle pedalling, only the first switch back seeming to pose a still greater gradient, I topped out at 54 minutes, somewhat perplexed as to why it is considered Britain's hardest hill climb, & I am a 30lb Dawes touring bike with mtn bike gearing and a Ortleib touring camera bag strapped to my front bars, hardly the ideal hill climbing steed!
Hardknott, followed by Wrynose at the end of a full day's riding thus far have posed more daunting a task though my right knee aches a little today, making the Fred Whitton Challenge a simply must-do really; imagine Hardknott at 100 miles, when all you want to is get off your bike; followed by a frightening descent on awful Tarmac, then a one mile straight, followed by Wyrnose, dead ahead.Absolutely nowhere to hide, with the Tarmac rolling out up ahead of you, giving you absolutely every thing it has to offer in one seemingly vertical line ahead, taunting you as you inch ever closer, yet still to be mastered. That, I suggest is the most difficult, your brain, frazzled, now genuinely intimidated by what very clearly lies ahead, legs, absolutely shot, brain clearly intimidated by this one, final ascent, the same gradient as Honnister, but this time, completely, utterly, exposed, not a tree in sight, mocking your puny efforts as you try to take her as your final prize.
Thus Wrynose to my mind is thus far the "biggest hill climb", not so much in its technical difficultly, more in that it wants you as a trophy - after Harknott has tested you almost to failure, you not really understanding that she is but Wyrnose' s warm up act, only now, a week on, do I think this cresting of W'nose the real success.