Steepest Bit of Hill in the UK ... That You Know Of

Berk Bonebonce
Berk Bonebonce Posts: 1,245
edited September 2010 in The bottom bracket
Road up to Riber, overlooking Matlock Bath in Derbys. Road sign says 20%.
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Comments

  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    The kerb outside my house, it's nigh on vertical!!! :shock:
  • mroli
    mroli Posts: 3,622
    http://www.roadcyclinguk.com/gear-news/ ... /5151.html

    Long Mynd, but from the other side than in the book is meant to be the steepest 1mile average road in the UK.
  • Feltup
    Feltup Posts: 1,340
    NapoleonD wrote:
    The kerb outside my house, it's nigh on vertical!!! :shock:

    My kerb is bigger than your kerb :wink:
    Short hairy legged roadie FCN 4 or 5 in my baggies.

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  • Splottboy
    Splottboy Posts: 3,695
    1. Near Bangor, through a ford, then to a T junction. Trackstack or fall off are the options!

    2. Top of Y Drym/The Drum, above Abergwyngregin. Old Roman road. Stoooopid steep, but you are close to 2,500 ft though.

    3. Nefyn to Trefor, Llyn Paninsularcoast road. Steep, then steeper...
  • The back road between Rosedale Abbey and the village of Hutton-le-Hole is Chimney Bank, Britain's steepest motorable road at 1 in 3, or 33%. Plenty of roads have 1 in 3 signs, but this is the only genuine article.
  • will2580
    will2580 Posts: 86
    yeh chimney bank is the steepest i know of in my area. and it keeps going for about a mile. not all of it at 33% but still quite steep
    commencal meta 5.5.3
  • jubilee hill in Trough of Bowland is the steepest one ive managed to get up. bloody steep lol,didn't have any Signs sadly.
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  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,207
    Constitution Hill in Swansea, 'cobble' too and on this year's ToB.

    There's a road in North Wales that is supposedly the steepest in Britian but you can't legally ride up it as it is one way going down the hill.

    From Guiness Book of Records (apparently, but cut and paste from another website)
    Steepest British road
    The steepest motorable road in the British Isles is the unclassified Chimney Bank at Rosedale Abbey, N Yorks, which is signposted ``1 in 3''. The county surveyor states that it is ``not quite'' a 33% gradient.
    An unclassified road at Ffordd Penllech, Harlech, UK, officially described as not suitable for motor vehicles, is 1 in 2.91 at its steepest point.
    Steve Barnard adds: Incidentally, the steep road in Harlech has a standard gradient sign at the top saying one in two and a half. Having walked up it quite recently, I'd debate the quoted 1:2.91 - it's steeper than that. It's worth noting that for railways a gradient quoted as one in 50 has a sine of 1/50, whereas road gradients are quoted as the tangent - so a 1 in 50 on a road isn't quite as steep as a 1 in 50 on a railway. At shallow grades it doesn't make a lot of difference, but if the 1:2.91 is measured ``railway-wise'' (the easiest way to do it on the ground), then it's tan(arcsin(1/2.91))=1/2.73 ``roadwise.''


    105618_24d86950.jpg
  • GiantMike
    GiantMike Posts: 3,139
    Feltup wrote:
    NapoleonD wrote:
    The kerb outside my house, it's nigh on vertical!!! :shock:

    My kerb is bigger than your kerb :wink:

    But probably no steeper.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,207
    I'm assuming we are talking roads here as the steepest bit's of hill I've seen in the UK are over vertical (is that steeper than vertical :? :wink: ).
  • Glad to see no-ones mentioned Blissford Hill, New Forest. Doing it on Sunday and I think I'm making it worse in my head than it really is.

    ... and why do photos not do hills any justice...?
  • I had a guinness the other night. 3 pound 50. Thats was a bit steep.
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  • ademort
    ademort Posts: 1,924
    Topics like this make me sick :cry: we dont have any hills. :cry: I dont even have a kerb :oops:
    Ademort
    ademort
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  • ademort wrote:
    Topics like this make me sick :cry: we dont have any hills. :cry: I dont even have a kerb :oops:
    Ademort

    I hope you have guinness otherwise life must be unbearable for you :)
    The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns
    momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.
  • tigerben
    tigerben Posts: 233
    bikeroutetoaster.com lets you use google map to measure distance / height and thereby deduce gradient.

    Only discovered the site a couple of days ago. it is genius.

    I ahve been using it to check my local climbs... sadly they are mere pimples (10%) and not worthy of posting...
  • mroli
    mroli Posts: 3,622
    ademort wrote:
    Topics like this make me sick :cry: we dont have any hills. :cry: I dont even have a kerb :oops:
    Ademort
    Don't expect us to cry for you - you've got canal sides. They're steep (especially if you fall in a canal). And you've got TdF havoc causing roads too!
  • Glad to see no-ones mentioned Blissford Hill, New Forest. Doing it on Sunday and I think I'm making it worse in my head than it really is.

    ... and why do photos not do hills any justice...?

    Blissford Hill is nothing, believe me. It's serious enough to be enjoyable, nothing more.

    I lived in York for a year and did a lot of the climbs in the Moors like Rosedale Chimney. It's amazing how attuned you get to telling apart different gradients when you come to a new area like that. My experience was that anything up to 1 in 4 is vaguely sensible, but when you get to 1 in 3 it's just ridiculous. I fell off on the Chimney (going up luckily), it was so steep that when I hit the ground I just carried on going downwards! I distinctly remember seeing a '1 in 6' sign on one vicious ride in the Moors and thinking 'Oh good, an easy one', and I swear at one point on that ride the pain was so bad it actually went off the end of the scale and became pleasure. Happy days.

    I reckon Hardknott Pass in the Lakes has a bit of 1 in 3 as well?
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Steepest bit of road hill I ride is the route from Dorking up Leith Hill and through Coldharbour.

    If anyone knows of a steeper road hill in the Surrey Downs I'd like to know so I can try it.
  • ademort
    ademort Posts: 1,924
    mroli wrote:
    ademort wrote:
    Topics like this make me sick :cry: we dont have any hills. :cry: I dont even have a kerb :oops:
    Ademort
    Don't expect us to cry for you - you've got canal sides. They're steep (especially if you fall in a canal). And you've got TdF havoc causing roads too!

    Tell you what we do, you can have one of our canals and you give me one of your hills :wink: Oh and by the way we cannot cycle on the tdf roads, we have to use the adjacent cycle path.
    Ademort
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  • gbs
    gbs Posts: 450
    RichardSwt wrote:
    Steepest bit of road hill I ride is the route from Dorking up Leith Hill and through Coldharbour.

    If anyone knows of a steeper road hill in the Surrey Downs I'd like to know so I can try it.

    Oh you have had a sheltered life! I am not overly experienced and have not done all of these but the following are local classics - Crocknorth Road approaching Ranmore Common from the NW, Denbies Hill approaching Ranmore from Dorking ie the SE, Chapel Lane from W Humble to Grt Bookham, Whitedown Lane from Suttton Abinger towards Effingham, Winterfold Hill from Cranleigh to Peaslake etc. Try using an OS map - there are others within easy reach of Dorking. Good luck
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  • freehub
    freehub Posts: 4,257
    Rosedale Chimney or http://www.google.co.uk/maps?ie=UTF8&ll ... 9,,0,16.22

    This hill IS as hard as Rosedale Chimney, and it can be harder if you've never being up it before.

    DSC00127-1.jpg
  • redddraggon
    redddraggon Posts: 10,862
    freehub wrote:
    This hill IS as hard as Rosedale Chimney, and it can be harder if you've never being up it before.

    DSC00127-1.jpg

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  • stratcat
    stratcat Posts: 160
    This ones fun
    hill
    and of course the infamous telephone box!
    very hardknott
  • Bunneh
    Bunneh Posts: 1,329
    Something oddly alluring about a big feck off hill. Most around here are a bit crap if I'm honest, there's The Rake but it's very short, albeit quite steep. We have plenty of them but none really long and hard (fnar).
  • e999sam
    e999sam Posts: 426
    I'm sure the Riber sign used to say 1in4 it's certainly steeper than 1in5 on the first bend and the surface was terrible the last time I went down it in earlier this year. I don't think I've been up Riber for over 20 years.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    gbs wrote:
    RichardSwt wrote:
    Steepest bit of road hill I ride is the route from Dorking up Leith Hill and through Coldharbour.

    If anyone knows of a steeper road hill in the Surrey Downs I'd like to know so I can try it.

    Oh you have had a sheltered life! I am not overly experienced and have not done all of these but the following are local classics - Crocknorth Road approaching Ranmore Common from the NW, Denbies Hill approaching Ranmore from Dorking ie the SE, Chapel Lane from W Humble to Grt Bookham, Whitedown Lane from Suttton Abinger towards Effingham, Winterfold Hill from Cranleigh to Peaslake etc. Try using an OS map - there are others within easy reach of Dorking. Good luck

    Nice, thanks :)

    Think I'll go out at the weekend and have a look.
  • andy162
    andy162 Posts: 634
    Rosedale is mega steep. Hywell Davies ( Planet X triathelete) can get up it on 53/25 tho!
    He's a mate of Wayne "'ard as fook" Randle so that probably explains it.

    I went over Rosedale last weekend. I've been over it plenty of times over the years. It never gets any easier. On blunt Winter legs or in the Summer when I'm usually going alright it always hurts...lots.
  • Buckled_Rims
    Buckled_Rims Posts: 1,648
    andy162 wrote:
    Rosedale is mega steep. Hywell Davies ( Planet X triathelete) can get up it on 53/25 tho!

    Tell him he's cross chaining :wink:
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  • andy162 wrote:
    Rosedale is mega steep. Hywell Davies ( Planet X triathelete) can get up it on 53/25 tho!
    He's a mate of Wayne "'ard as fook" Randle so that probably explains it.

    I dread to think what Wayne gets up it on! Probably about 53/16.
    "A cyclist has nothing to lose but his chain"

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  • andy162
    andy162 Posts: 634
    andy162 wrote:
    Rosedale is mega steep. Hywell Davies ( Planet X triathelete) can get up it on 53/25 tho!
    He's a mate of Wayne "'ard as fook" Randle so that probably explains it.

    I dread to think what Wayne gets up it on! Probably about 53/16.

    I think Davies was the only one of the Planet X crew that got up Rosedale on the 53. Earned him £100 PX for his effort. Probably needed it afterwards to repace his stretched chain & bent crank arms!