Steepest hill climb UK

Where is the steepest ridable hill in the UK?
What's it's average/max gradient?

Andrew

Depends how fit you are, I'd guess. My vote would go to Hardknott Pass here
in the Lakes, ridden up from the seaward side - brutal climb, up to 30% in
places and goes on for a couple of miles. The Borrowdale end of Honister
Pass is pretty steep too; both are rideable.

Dales - the minor roads linking Swaledale and Wensleydale are good value for
money.

In Wales, that stretch of road heading up from Dinas Mawddwy over the top to
Bala is steep and sustained - I've only ever ridden down it, hitting my max
recorded speed of 55 mph on it (on a rigid steel MTB!).

Scotland? It's so big there's room to put the roads between the mountains
rather than over the top, but the road from Strathcarron up and over to
Applecross is mental - loads of hairpins, single lane with passing places
all the way.

If you want to test your hill climbing ability, I'd suggest this route in
the Lakes -

Start in Gt. Langdale, ride S over into Little Langdale, then west up over
Wrynose Pass. Drop into the basin beyond, then up and over Hardknott Pass.
Drop into Eskdale, following the road SW to just before Eskdale Green. Turn
left here and take the road over Birker Fell into the Duddon Valley; turn
left up the valley back to Wrynose Bottom and then retrace your steps to Gt.
Langdale - excellent route my man. Hmmmm - might even do it myself this week
if we get any decent weather......
-----------------------------------

One needs to make some distinction between steepest road and most 
severe climb/descent on a road.  Applecross could be described as one 
of the latter if only for the height gained/lost, so could Rosedale 
Chimney Bank.  Rosedale Chimney Bank may be described as 1 in 3 with 
bends but the road covered in a climb or descent may vary according to 
whether uses the full extent of the bend or 'clips' the corner closely 
but it is not a very long descent/climb (about 1/2 mile).

A different category altogether- steepest residential road.
I'd go for West yorkshire.  Where my bike stayed in the shed for 2 years.

Hebden Bridge has typical 'semi-detatched' land houses on some monstorous
hills.

My own road is 10 to 15 %

I once tried riding the short hill below Harlech Castle in North wales. It
was signposted 1:2.5.  I failed because I couldn,t keep the front wheel down
around the hairpin bend, which is the steepest bit, I'm sure it is rideable
though.

Hi all,
Did anyone ever cycle up constitution hill near Swansea in Wales. It's said
to be the world's steepest inhabited cobbled road. It's about 1 mile up, and
33% in places. It featured last year and a couple of years ago in the "Tour
of Britian".
If it's raining you can slide back down on the cobbles.

Regards,
Denis  Grehan.

I've not checked as I don't have a copy of the Guinness book of Records
but Chimney Bank at Rosedale in the North York Moors is supposedly the
steepest tarmac surfaced road in Britain It gets to 33% for around 50 or
60 metres and a lot of the rest is 25%. There's a big red sign at the
top recommending that cyclists dismount. 

The only trouble is; it's on the way to work :-( 

It's mentioned in this month's MBR on one of their featured rides.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bob Wightman

There used to be a road around the base of Harlech Castle in North
Wales - it had a sign-post at the top that claimed it was one in
two and a half....

Anyone confirm that?

-- 
Dave Ross

Yes - it's marked (or was about ten years ago) at the bottom too as
1-in-2.5, 40%, with the addition (in Welsh) "unsuitable for traffic". I
managed to ride up (on 28 x 28, out of the saddle) but was too scared to
ride down. It's not very long - maybe 300 yds or so.

Tim Hughes
-- 

Does anyone have any statistics on the road out of the north side of 
Glyn Ceiriog, a few miles south of Llangollen? I think the sign post 
says something like '25% for 1/4 mile' but it seems worse than that - I'
m sure it's the steepest sustained climb I've ever ridden up. We 
chickened out of riding down it, and even walking down with a loaded 
tandem was scary enough.
-- 
James Annan

How do Hardknott and Wrynose passes in the Lakes compare to other climbs in
England? I always thought they, or one of them (Hardknott?), were the steepest in the
country.

Tony.

Does the Burway in Shropshire come anywhere close?  I know it's been used
for a few hill climbs in the past. There is a road on the other side of the
hill from the Burway that is straight and very steep - 50+mph should be no
problem, I've got 49mph on an MTB before I ran out of gears - but I don't
know what it's called.  There is a very steep one somewhere in the south
Peaks, again no name, sorry.  There's a climb called the "Drum and Monkey"
(after the pub half way up) also in Shropshire, very steep but rideable.

All these hills are surfaced and rideable on a road bike.  As I've ridden
all these hills hundreds of times, I'd be interested to know how they
compare to other hills in the UK. Of course, not being a stiffback, I'm only
interested in riding down!

Andy.

There's an absolute killer out of Prenteg near Porthmadog in Gwynedd. It
rises from, in effect, sea level to maybe a thousand feet in just a few
hundred yards and then levels out to give the most fantastic views across
Snowdonia.

On a slightly less punishing note, my favourite climb is out of Rhayader in
Powys on the old drovers' road towards Devil's Bridge (Wimps can take the
scenic route around the Cwm Elan reservoirs). I've ridden this in every
weather condition from burning sun to stinging sleet and I still can't get
enough of it. In fact, writing this has got me thinking that I might be able
to fit in a weekend trip in a couple of weeks' time...

--
Rob

There's steep and there's steep enough to be a killer in terms of distance
and conditions.

I cycled Bealach na Ba in Scotland in 1998, from the South.
There was a gale blowing down it.
It was the hardest hill I've ever climbed and I've been up the Tourmalet,
Aubisque, Marie Blanque and all of them.

It's hard to judge how steep the steep bit (which is long ) is. But it was
torture in the conditions.

There are some awfully steep hills here in Ireland but the hardest one I
know is the climb to Mullaghanish in West Cork, a dead end going to a TV
mast.
I've measured this accurately with instrumentation and it's a 2.2 mile climb
averaging 11.5%.
This is a very high average. The Tourmalet is 8.5% average, though 11 miles
in length.

"Garry Lee / Gearóid O Laoi" wrote:
> There are some awfully steep hills here in Ireland but the hardest one I
> know is the climb to Mullaghanish in West Cork, a dead end going to a TV
> mast.

Have you ever measured the Gap of Mamore near Buncrana on the Inishowen
Peninsula in County Donegal ?  The climb separated the men from the boys
in a stage of the 1976 Tour of Ireland.  Sean Kelly (then a boy) won the
stage and I proudly overtook my hero Albert Hitchen (a man) walking near the
top.  
I believe the road was deliberately engineered to provide a "difficulty"
near the finish of the classic Inishowen 100 motorcycle race.
However rumours that our chainrings hit the road at the summit are
greatly exagerated !

Bob (wells@atm.ox.ac.uk)

Noting the current posts on Hill Climbs got me thinking about the most 
hideous courses I rode when I was racing regularly (85-92).

Rosedale Chimney near Hull, with 600 odd yards of 1 in 3  near the end 
was grim, even on 41 x 25, but Woolacombe Hill in Cornwall has to be the 
worst. 1200 yards with 800 of it unrelenting 1 in 4. Rode the National 
there in the 80's with Darryl Webster winning with an awesome ride.

Anyone else got some favourite nightmares !

Steve (still threatening to race again and do it right this time) Benton

> Anyone else got some favourite nightmares !

Yeah, Jacob's Ladder in the Dark Peak (although much less of a
nightmare this weekend despite the heat) and Ben Nevis. Climbing the
south end of High Street in the lakes with luggage was also pretty
tricky (could neither push nor carry the bike) as was the (illegal)
ascent of Whernside.

The track from the west end of Rushup Edge to near Hayfield in the Dark
Peak (round Mount Famine) is utterly E-V-I-L in that direction.

Matt...

Has anyone ridden Applecross (Scotland, longest climb in UK)?
I keep hearing about it but no-one says that they've ridden it.

Woolacombe Hill in Cornwall.... where is it (nearest village, town,
landmark - don't say Woolacombe!)?

There are lots of, er, fine hills that can be classed as brutal in Cornwall.
There's one out of Pentewan going east towards Porthpean that, with the
wrong sort of tyres on, if you stop only applying front brake you will still
slide backwards.  (I'm never any good at estimating gradient).

I think the locals refer to it as Challacombe Hill. In Woollacombe. Starts
off, fairly steady, 300 yards from the beach.

Porlock Hill is pretty brutal aswell. Signposted off the M5 aswell

Applecross is a favourite with lots of people touring up the west coast. I
always nipped over the short cut to Sheildaig and dodged it until finally
riding it a few years ago. It is a tough climb, but I don't think it is the
worst (I did not realise that it was supposed to be the longest in the UK as
mentioned in the earlier post). Just north of Lochinver is the mad wee road
of Ross - no long climbs, but if you look on the map, you will see it has
around 15 single or double arrow climbs in a 20 mile stretch. I think some
of the Lakeland passes are pretty nasty, according to friends that have
ridden them - Hard Knot or Wrynose.
Ken

Ken <ken{remove.this.anti.spam.to.reply}russell@usa.net> wrote:
: I think some of the Lakeland passes are pretty nasty, according to friends 
: that have ridden them - Hard Knot or Wrynose.
  Understatement of the decade ... I remember doing Hardknott and then Wrynose
passes in succession and discovering the true meaning of the word `pain' ...
other favourite(!) brutal climbs of my acquaintance include: 

- Rosedale Chimney[1] (mentioned passim) - one of the few hills I've had to walk
  *down* - gravel on the hairpins precluded safe cycling.

- White Horse Bank (also in the Moors). Not as steep as the Chimney (`only'
  1:4) but goes on for a bit. I suspect I'll be getting acquainted with it
  again next weekend ;-) The loop around Bransdale from Helmsley to
  Kirkbymoorside is a bit of a sod in places (esp. the climb out of Cockayne)

- Bwlch-y-Groes in Mid-Wales. Did it once in singularly foul weather whilst
  cycling to a wedding in Llangollen - for full effect ride it from the Dinas
  Mawwdwy side. Wales has an elegant sufficiency of really horrific climbs,
  and I got to know a good few of them when I lived in Aberystwyth.

  Several wee hills in the West Country have already been mentioned, inc.
Porlock. Nobody has mentioned the climb up to Hartside Summit yet - not really
that steep, but it goes seems to go on forever (5 or 6 mile climb, IIRC)

Simon

[1] - Nowhere near Hull, but about 30 miles from York.

-- 

In article <7r7umg$boo$2@pump1.york.ac.uk>, Simon Ward <simon@blinkyfish
.freeserve.co.uk> writes

>Nobody has mentioned the climb up to Hartside Summit yet - not really
>that steep, but it goes seems to go on forever (5 or 6 mile climb, IIRC)

Nobody has mentioned Holme Moss yet either.  It's one of the only places
I know in England where it can still be covered in snow weeks after it
has melted everywhere else.  Being a cyclist and living in Holmfirth you
can't not climb it on a regular basis!  I've even raced up it, well
time-trialled, but I suppose that still counts(!)

God knows how but my brother talked me into climbing it in January this
year!  The descent into Woodhead was just a bit hairier than usual, what
with black ice and slush on the road.

As everyone who's done it will know, the steepest part is the first
section up to Holme village.  The difficulty of the rest of it is
usually dependent on wind direction once you get onto the exposed
sections.

I still miss riding up there with thousands of people lining the route
to watch various international road races (Kellogg's, Milk Race, Leeds
Classic etc.  The Prutour went up it last year, but from the wrong - eg
much easier side)
-- 
William Boyes

I agree, but take in the Snake and a return via Ladybower and the Strines
for a real tough ride. Ewden Heights in the Strines is the toughest clinb
I know of. First time I couldn't even walk up the inside of the lower
hairpin, I had to struggle round the outside!!!

Chris

PS there is an almost parallel off road route that is pretty hard too...

I knew there was one I had forgotten!  

First time I went up that one I snapped my chain.  I agree, it is
exceptionally tough, especially as it usually involves at least 30 miles
in the hills previously to get there.  (I remember one particular ride
where we got lost in the fog off-road above Ladybower and took a wrong
turn.  Ended up in the saddle for 7 hours and once we got back to the
road the quickest way home was back over the Strines!).

I was going to do a TdF style route over the Pennines this summer,
starting in Huddersfield and crossing the hills at Todmorden into
Littleborough, back over Buckstones, down into Marsden and over
Standedge then onto Greenfield, over Saddleworth into Holmfirth, then
over the Moss and back via Woodhead Pass.  No particular brutes except
Holme Moss, but I think adding the Strines loop on top of that would be
too tough even for the pros (140 as opposed to 90 miles)!

(Needless to say I haven't done it, yet!).
-- 
William Boyes

I seem to recall the steepest stretch of road I ever rode was Park Rash,
a 1 in 3 gradient going NE from Kettlewell to Leyburn in the Yorkshire
Dales.
Going NW from Kettlewell one can turn left in Buckden and go over Fleet
Moss to Hawes. This road goes to 1900 ft. and to the best of my
knowledge is the highest public paved road in England.
Also notable is Tan Hill  about 10 miles N of Hawes via Keld in
Swaledale. This is far better 'coz there's a pub at the top. The Tan
Hill Inn at approx 1800 ft. is England's highest pub.
North of the border about 20 miles NW from Dumfries you can turn right
from the A76 onto the B797 which runs from Mennock to Wanlockhead. This
road goes over 2000 ft. and I believe is the UK's highest public paved
road.
5 years ago I crossed the Beartooth Pass from Montana to Wyoming. At
over 10,000 ft. this road is snowed in for 9 months of the year. The
snowbanks at the side of the road were about 15 ft. high in July. Not as
steep as Park Rash though.
Higher than that, even though I haven't been there, yet, are some of the
mountain passes in Colorado where road altitude is in excess of 12,000
ft.

Trevor Smith <smitht@autobahn.mb.ca> wrote:
: I seem to recall the steepest stretch of road I ever rode was Park Rash,
: a 1 in 3 gradient going NE from Kettlewell to Leyburn in the Yorkshire
: Dales.

Know it well. Ridden it several times, failed to assault it on a fixed 
gear (but at least I can say I tried :-) )

: Going NW from Kettlewell one can turn left in Buckden and go over Fleet
: Moss to Hawes. This road goes to 1900 ft. and to the best of my
: knowledge is the highest public paved road in England.

That's the easy way up :-) Try coming over from Hawes. Much harder. Also,
ISTR that the summit of Hardknott Pass is higher than Fleet Moss (1934ft, I
think)

: Also notable is Tan Hill  about 10 miles N of Hawes via Keld in
: Swaledale. This is far better 'coz there's a pub at the top. The Tan
: Hill Inn at approx 1800 ft. is England's highest pub.
                     ^^^^
  1726ft.
  Again, approaching from Keld is the easy way - if you get to Tan Hill from
Reeth there's the 12 mile climb of Arkengarthdale to contend with.

Simon (in `anorak mode')

Hi,

Can't remember what route I was talking about, if it was the Holme-moss,
snake, Strines route...

there is a route that starts in Holmfirth. It goes sort of South (can't
remember the details). It goes through some housing and comes out at the
little crag (bouldering only). It then goes further South on large tracks
to a little village (Scholes I think). Then on road for a bit looping back
to Holmfirth before going off down to the reservoirs there. This goes back
up and joins Holm-moss at the first hairpin above Holme village. Then I'm
afraid it's on the road up and over the moss. Take the Longendale trail at
the bottom and work your way round to Glossop. Take Doctor's gate to the
top of the Snake and down a bit more road. Do the small off road loop
towards Win hill but don't go up. Then cross the Snake again and go over
either Hagg farm or Rowlee farm to Ladybower. From the top of the valley
do Cut Gate to take you to the top of the Woodhead pass (the Flouch
roundabout) and find an off road route back to Holmfirth. 

So, basically the Glossop circle but with added interest.

Chris

I'll look on the map if you want further info.

Hm, I'm going to get that pleasure that weekend (25 mile TT 'Circuit
of Holme Moss'). Oh, and I've got Jim Henderson (National Hill Climb
Champion off one minute after me. Bets are currently being taken on
how long it will take him to catch me.....about 5 mins being my
current best estimate!

How steep is Holme Moss anyway?

Arthur

steepest bits are about 1in6 I think. But it's not the extreme gradient,
it's the length and the fairly steep gradient that hurts, oh and the wind
if it's blowing the wrong way.

Chris W

I watched the PruTour this year go over the Tumble near Abergavenny.
That kicks up pretty steep and is pretty long aswell. There are loads in
Cornwall/Devon. No names, just find a coastal town and you can guarantee
a severe climb out of it inland!

The road out of Sennen (near Lands End) is one such Cornish beast!  Not
very long but very steep pretty much all the way (I had to unload my
crap old Fiesta of friends a few years back and take them up in 2 goes
as I couldn't drive up it otherwise :)

Dan

Well, there's that deadly one next to Aberystwyth Science Park; only once
did I manage to drive my car up it in second gear...

Penglais hill isn't nice. I used to live in Glanwern, near Borth, and would 
go to the pub in Aber some nights. The back road via Clarach is nasty and
steep [1] and therefore I went via Bow Street to the pub.

The way back was a dilemma: the short and nasty route up Penglais hill and over
or the longer one out by Capel Dewi...

Great days, and not too painful either, especially given that I wasn't using 
ultra-low mountainbike gears, either...


[1] I once fell off on the climb out of Clarach, and ended up tumbling down
    one flight of those steps that shortcut the hairpin in that road. That
    taught me not to over-tighten SPuD pedals.

-- 
Dan Holdsworth PhD  

On Wed, 8 Sep 1999 10:56:57 +0100, Paul Stratford wrote:
>Has anyone ridden Applecross (Scotland, longest climb in UK)?
>I keep hearing about it but no-one says that they've ridden it.

Yes, about 3 years ago.  There is a great round trip you can do around
the peninsular which is all on tarmac with almost no traffic.  Even in
the middle of summer we probably saw about 30 cars over the whole 50
or so miles.  Nice rugged but varied scenery.  We all had mountain
bikes and did the route in a clockwise direction.

The climb is only evil in the sense that it is long.  One of my mates
had dodgy gears with the lowest working one too high to be useful but
we still got up it with one person pedalling for two bikes.  Given our
fitness it can't be very steep.  That said, I wouldn't fancy doing it
on my road bike.

Now the downhill on the other side was definitely worth it.  No
pedalling and 30+ mph for about 10 minutes and a total drop of about
2300ft according to my map.  And we finished and had dinner at the pub
in Applecross which hopefully still does great food.  Could be
/REALLY/ fun with a strong tailwind!

My recollection is that going towards Applecross the hill is steeper
and twistier on the way up and gentler on the way down, so I would
recommend going over it towards Applecross like we did more than doing
it in the other direction.

It (being Applecross pass in Western Scotland) goes through the saddle
pass between two hills marked as 2328ft and 2539ft on my (modern)
1:250,000 map.  I think the road is not much short of the lower of
these two.  So inexactly it is a little lower than 2328*12*2.54/100 =
709m altitude.

-- 
Dave tm

The following is posted without benefit of a map, so excuse any errors:

About 10 miles south of Hartside there's a climb from Dufton (?) village
to a radar station at 2780 ft (?) above sea level. Well over 2000 ft of
climbing from the valley, paved all the way. But it's a dead end, although
you can follow a track from near the top towards Alston. Is there anyone
out there from Northumbria DA that remembers riding this in about 1970?

--
Peter James
Ottawa, Ontario

On Thu, 09 Sep 1999 19:23:13 GMT, jcwyatt@cwcom.not (Jason Wyatt)
wrote:
>I've often wondered what the highest paved road in UK is.

Bealach Na Ba , Applecross   635m  (from Sea Level)

Highest  road pass  Cairnwell (Braemar/Blairgowerie A93) 665m

Highest paved road, Scotland  Green Lowther 730m (private open to
bikes,) , Lanarkshire.

Highest paved road, England  Great Dun Fell 784m (private open to
bikes,)  North Pennines

More big passes:
                
Black Hill	609	Unc	Nenthead	Allendale	86/87 NY8040	
Swinhope Moor	568	Unc	Nenthead	Allendale	86/87 NY8040	
Kilhope Cross	627	A689	Nenthead	Weardale	86/87 NY7040	
Flinty Fell	591	Unc	Nenthead	Garrigill	86/87 NY7040	
Hartside		580c	A686	Alston		Penrith	86	NY6040	
Hartside		A686/unc.Renwick	Alston	86	NY6040
Rookhope Head	536	Unc.	Allenheads	Rookhope	87 NY8040	
Scarsike Head	539	Unc	Westgate	Rookhope	87 NY9040	
Newhouse Moor	524	Unc.	Ireshopeburn	Middlhope	87 NY8040	
Cuthberts Hill	508	Unc.	Blanchland	Rookhope	87 NY9040	
Bollihope Common	511	B6278	Bollihope	Stanhope	92 NY9030	
Bollihope Common		 B6278/Unc.Middleton	Stanhope	92 NY9030	
Swinhope Head	607	Unc	Newbiggin	Westgate	91/92 NY8030	
Harthope Moor	627	Unc.	Langdon Beck	Weardale	92 NY8030	
Cow Green	500c	Unc.	Langdon Beck	Cow Green Res.	91/92NY8030	
Tan Hill	536	Unc.	Kirkby Steven	Langthwaite	91/92NY8000	
Tan Hill		Unc.	Keld	Langthwaite	91/92	NY8000
Tan Hill	520c	Unc.	Keld	Kirkby Steven	91/92	NY8000
Lamps Moss	518	B6270	Keld	Kirkby Steven	91/92	NY8000
Stang	511	Unc	Langthwaite	Barnard Castle	92	NZ0000
Tynehead Fell	598	B6277	Alston	Middleton	91	NY7030
The Fleak	544	Unc	Askrigg	Reeth	98	SD9090	
Buttertubs	526	Unc	Thwaite	Hawes	98	SD8090	
Fleet Moss	589	Unc	Buckden	Hawes	98	SD8090	
Garsdale Common	537	Unc.	Cowgill	Garsdale Station	98 SD8090	
Hunter's Stone	504	Unc.	Kettlewell	Coverdale	98 SD9070	
Holme Moss	524	A6024	Holmfirth 	Woodhead	110 SE0000	
Snake Pass	512	A57	Glossop	Ladybower	110	SK0090
Cat and Fiddle	515	A537	Buxton	Macclesfield	119	SK0070
Cat and Fiddle		A537/unc	Goyt	Macclesfield 119	SK0070	
Cat and Fiddle		A537/unc	Wildboarclough	Buxton 118	SK0060	
Axe Edge	500c	A537	Buxton	Leek	119	SK0060	
Axe Edge	530c	Unc	Buxton	Cat and Fiddle	119	SK0070
Axe Edge		Unc	Goyt	Buxton	119	SK0070	
Priorsdale	547	Unc	Ashgill	Priorsdale	NY7040		
Bwlch y Groes	546	Unc.	Dinas Mawddwy	Llanuwchllyn 124/125	SH9020
Bwlch y Groes	   ---	Unc.	Vyrnwy	Llanuwchllyn	124/126	SH9021
Gospel Pass	542	Unc.	Hay	Llanthony	161	SO2030
Bwlch Pen y Feidiog	531	Unc.	Trawsfynnydd	Llanuwchllyn 124	SH7030
Bwlch y Cloddiau	530c	Unc.	Llangurig	Afon Diliw 136/136	SN8070
Werfa	520c	A4107/A4061	Ogmore Vale	Abergwynfi	170 SS9090
Werfa	 ----	A4107/A4062	Treorchy	Abergwynfi	170 SS9090
Mynydd Llangynidr	516	B4560	Beaufort	Llangynidr 161	SO1010
Mynydd Llangynidr	 ----	B4560/Unc.	Beaufort Llangatock	161	SO1010
Mynydd Llangynidr	 ----	B4560/Unc.	Beaufort Llangatock	161	SO1010
Blorenge	510c	Unc.	Llanfoist	Blaenafon	161 SO2010
Bryn y Fedwyn	509	Unc.	Machynlleth	Staylittle136/135	SN8090
Hirwaun Common	500c	A4061	Treorchy	Hirwaun	170	SN9000
Hirnant	500c	Unc.	Bala	Vyrnwy	125	SH9020


Enjoy!


Richard Webb

Paul Stratford <paul@spameggsandspam-pi-design.com> wrote in message
news:gsqB3.1715$H5.212835@newsr2.u-net.net...
> Has anyone ridden Applecross (Scotland, longest climb in UK)?
> I keep hearing about it but no-one says that they've ridden it.
>
> Woolacombe Hill in Cornwall.... where is it (nearest village, town,
> landmark - don't say Woolacombe

I knew I wasn't going mad - I had to check... Woolacombe is in North Devon
near Ilfracombe and Barnstable.
To be precise -
51 deg 10.37 mins N
4 deg 12.46 mins W
or SS:4586 43891
The wonders of AutoRoute! (Though knowing MS they've ballsed up the grid
somehow)

The road that takes you from Barkston village, near Grantham up to
Barkston Heath airfield.

Its included in the Caythorpe Chase bike ride, (or at least it was last
year).

I get close to wheel spin even on a dry surface in the granny ring, and
some friends who live in Barkston exclaimed 'you cant ride up THAT'
(had to then, just to prove them wrong :-)  )

-- 
Phil Passmore