The School of Hardknotts:
TACKLING BRITAIN'S STEEPEST ROAD CLIMBS
Source: Hugo Gladstone
Posted: 4 August 2008
From the east side, Harknott Pass in the Lake District looks like something out of a cartoon. So exaggerated is its gradient and crazy zig-zags, that, as you approach the road up the barren mountainside, you half expect to see Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote whizz by on one of their madcap chases.
Above: The jaw dropping eastern approach to the Lake District's Hardknott Pass, with the path of the road traced on, revealing it's true severity
For a cyclist the sight of such a spectacular hill is actually quite disarming. As I hit if for the first time, I'm so preoccupied by the idea of it being some sort of theme park ride, I forget to apply sufficient pressure to the pedals and stall on the very first steep bit.
The thing is: this is the easier side of Harknott! Tackle the climb from the west (like the Fred Whitton Challenge does) and you are presented with a climb equally as steep but more sustained. The start is marked by an old red telephone box on the verge. As I sit beside it for a quick sip from my bottle in preparation for the onslaught, I wonder how many local cyclists who, knowing what still lies ahead, have exhaustedly picked up its receiver and called their mums for a lift.
Above: The sign says it all (the phonebox has been thoughfully placed for that 'I've had a mechanical, honest' telephone call.
From this quintessential British icon, the road rears up like a startled stallion. I rise out of the saddle, distribute my weight over the front of the bike and dance up through the clump of trees that serves as an introduction to this 2km long beast of a hill. A cattle grid rapidly returns me to my seat as my rear wheel spins wildly on the traction-less rails. For a brief moment I fear I'm going to get slapped down on the rack like a steak on a barbeque - but fate decides otherwise. What still lies ahead is evidently tough enough.
Two distinct spurts of 30% savagery follow, clambering up through tight bends of corrugated tarmac and big leafy green pastures. From the ruined hill-fort at the top, the views are fantastic but it takes the whole width of the road and just about all the body strength I can muster to get me there.
Above: the roadbuilders have thoughtfully added cattle grids at various intervals, just in case you find yourself with a surfeit of momentum
And yet this is still only half of it. Although the combination can be avoided by turning south beside the bridge at Cockley Beck, Hardknott typically comes in partnership with the Wrynose Pass a few kilometres further up the Duddon valley towards Little Langdale. From the west, this climb is relatively tame but from the east it makes an evil double whammy with Hardknott. If you're in the area and up for a tough challenge: Wry-Knott?
MOOR STEEP THRILLS
Despite this pair being generally recognised as Britain's toughest road climbs (the far longer Bealach-na-Ba in the Scottish Highlands might put up a tough argument), there are even steeper strips of tarmac out there. Across the other side of the country, the road builders of North Yorkshire Moors specialise in silly gradients - just check out the A170 up Sutton Bank or some of the lanes near Robin Hood's Bay.
Above: Chimney Bank - add your own zig-zags if it makes things easier
To go to extremes, though, Chimney Bank on southern side of the moors can lay claim to being the steepest public road in England. From the village of Rosedale Abbey it clambers so steeply up the escarpment that when the national hill climb championship was held there in 1987, approximately 10 of the fighting fit racers lost all their momentum and fell off. You could say they had Chimney stacks.
Above: Just like the Hardknott, another piece of 'because it's there' roadbuilding - Chimney Bank
The first chunk of the kilometre long climb is a sissy 1 in 6 before it gets serious, ramps up and prolongs at 1 in 3. Climbing it is not just a case of producing enough power but also fighting with your bike to keep the front wheel on the ground. I just about manage it on a gear of 36x23 although I have to add a couple of my own extra meanders to the two sharp bends that punctuate the climb midway up.
At the top there's a good 270 degree panorama wrapping around from Rosedale Abbey (shrunken to miniature village scale in the dale below) to the long, gradual descent enticing you across the heather topped moors ahead. This is the sort of reward you get for climbing these brutes. As too, I persuade myself, is the cream tea I tuck into when I complete my loop in Kirkbymoorside.
WELSH WICKEDNESS
Alongside the Lakes and North Yorks', Britain's other stronghold of wickedly steep roads is in the vast principality of Wales. Take the cobbled Constitution Hill in Swansea and the Devil's Staircase near Llanwrtyd Wells. Both have been known to force over-geared competitors in the Milk Race and Tour of Britain to getting off and pushing.
Above: Beauty and the beast: you'll only appreciate the view back down towards Dinas Mawddy when you've topped this beast, which has had Milk Race riders waddling up its lower reaches, having ran out of gears
When I tackle Bwlch y Groes (from the Dinas Mawddy side) in Snowdonia it is unquestionably the harshest climbing experience I've ever had. At 3km it may not compare in length to what you might find in the Alps or Pyrenees, but none of those big cols have ever reduced me to the shivering, sweating, nauseous wreck I am on its unrelentingly brutal slope.
Britain's very steepest road is also in Snowdonia but only on the fringes of it, up a small bluff in the pleasant coastal town of Harlech.
Above: read it and weep - 40% is probably an exaggeration but they didn't build 13th Century Harlech Castle at the top of this brute for nothing.
Strictly speaking this back-lane is only the UK's steepest descent. For although the sign in the town centre at the top reads (a slightly exaggerated) 40%, the sign at the bottom reads a firm 'No Entry'. It's one-way, narrow and - as I justify alongside the excuse that I won't be going up it much faster than walking pace - rarely used by anyone.
Even with the legal small-print negotiated, the street of Ffordd Pen Llech proves about as easy to climb as it for an Englishman to say. It takes me three attempts to crack it and still comes with some pretty ugly grunts.
I eventually make it by sprinting the flat approach road then keeping my wits about me as I take off like a plane through the very steepest segment at the bottom. After the first tight right hander the gradient soon eases off slightly and the road winds up between front doors and gardens into the town. At 400m it's not a long climb but it's ridiculously steep and I can see why in the 13th Century they decided to build a castle at the top.
Trying to get a battering ram up here would have been a nightmare.
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