In my continued quest to ride the 100 climbs as found in the book by Simon Warren - 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs: A Road Cyclist's Guide to Britain's Hills - I found myself travelling up to Calderdale this week. There are some climbs that get recognition because of their elevation gain, some because of their steepness and some due to the beautiful national park surroundings. The first two climbs of my day in Calderdale get recognition due to a combination of their steepness and their jarring cobbled surface. If you're wanting to test yourself on cobbled climbs without needing to go over to Belgium or Northern France then Halifax is a fine place to start, as I soon found out. Like
Yorkshire
Park Rash and other Yorkshire Hills
A few weeks ago I went up to Scotland for work. Yes, back in the days of being able to leave the house! For anyone reading this in years to come - that's a reference to the restrictions currently in place for the CovID19 pandemic! And as I always try to do, I went for a ride as a break to the driving on my way up. On this occasion it saw me stopping in Grassington with the aim of riding up Park Rash - Hill #45. Park Rash is a hill climb north of Kettlewell. So I chose Grassington as the target for my start point in order to give myself a little bit of a warm up prior to
Giving the new gravel tyres a true test in the Yorkshire Dales
Anyone who's had their ear to the ground will know about my recent purchase of some gravel tyres. For me they are going to be my road bike winter tyres too. I have had them for a few weeks now and on my way up to Scotland for work I found a good opportunity to give them a good and proper testing! In the Yorkshire Dales riding out from Settle. I don't intend this to be a review of my tyres. That will be saved until another day/blog post but I may well mention them a few times all the same. Instead this is my remarks on riding in the Yorkshire Dales, on road, off road and up hills. Including a
A day on the road bike in the Yorkshire Dales
One of the advantages of trying to climb as many of the 100 UK Climbs as possible is that you end up riding in many different parts of the UK. The Yorkshire Dales is somewhere that I might choose to ride in any case but my 'hunt for climbs' partly dictated my route on this occasion. Having already climbed Buttertubs Pass and Lamps Moss, this route focused on Tan Hill, Oxnop Scar and The Stang. Turning this into the first day of a two day trip I managed to convince two mates to come along for the ride. 1181
Lamps Moss and Buttertubs Pass
Another work trip up north brings another opportunity to ride. Last time I rode up this way it was a very quick blast from Reeth up to the top of Grinton Moor. But on the way down from the A66 to Reeth I passed through Kirkby Stephen and drove up Lamps Moss. It was then that I decided that I’d have to come back at the next opportunity. 200
