Rosedale Chimney

Well today I managed to climb Rosedale Chimney. A brute of a climb in the North Yorkshire Moors. The road is 1 in 3 and is supposed to be the steepest bit of tarmac in England. Obligatory photo under the sign at the top below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29204273@N05/2728600235/

Well done! Dismount please...(not on your nelly)

Jolly well done hugo. I know that road and I'm ashamed to say that I would never try it.

dear god

I had for a short while a night job in a factory somewjere on the outskirts of Huddersfield, the public transport option was a stroll up an insanely steep lane to the main road where the bus stopped, in the dark, and usually the rain

if I missed the us, (usually) there was a very isolated pub that greeted anyone walking in like the prodigal son, bless them

anyhow, erm ... not all bad at all Yorkshire but not now that I'm older

Gawd, you did that climb on a road bike?

*bows deep with respect*

I did it on my MTB once with a 24 tooth granny ring and a 32 tooth first and it damn nearly killed me.

Well done. How long does the climb take?

Yes was on a road bike, but being a sensible chap I have a triple, make the rides round the moors much more enjoyable. Got up on 30x26.

Don't know, around 15 minutes at a guess. I went pretty slow on the lower bit as I knew that there was a decent stretch where I had no chance of sitting down (well not unless I wanted a quick exit off the back of the bike!).

Wow - it's hard just hiking up it.

1:3 - wow, thats: some serious angle !

Ive a 1:6 I can whip myself with, but that...mmmm!

How do they measure hill ratios, though? It it's constantly 1:3, than that wouldn't pose a problem to most cyclists of any ability, as you would just steam straight up it.

If it was measured on average, and undulating, with little drops of 5:1 followed by 10 metre long climbs of 1:1, then it would be a different ball game.

I've done this climb a few times, the last time on 28x28, the bottom gear on my light tourer.

In fact that is a perfect description of Chimney Bank except you left out the hairpins and road surace buggered up by a stream of struggling motorvehicles.

My first attempt ended just beyond the 2nd hairpin, although my bike wasn't really geared for North Yorkshire and I was accustomed to East Anglia..

Later encounters with the beast were on the Moors 'illy Imperial after already tackling 60 hilly miles. I adopted the tactic of buying an ice cream in Rosedale and enjoying it as I walked up the early stages (later it's too steep to enjoy an ice cream AND push a bike).

My only successful attempt was effortless but nearly thwarted by a suicidal sheep for which I had to brake suddenly, however I was on a 650cc motorbike.

Anyway, they do(did?) races up it!

It's hard to get a handle on how steep hills are, well for me anyway. I'm surrounded by the things, which I quite like, but I've no idea how steep they are.

The surface makes a big difference too. The there are no tarmac hills near me that I think are as bad as this hill, going from what you've said. I don't think anyway. The hill out behind me is massive but the road up there is a series of climbs and drops, not one big climb.

The steep gravel tracks are trickier though, you need to be very smooth and consistent because if you loose traction and stop it's very hard to get moving again.

That's quite a climb, Wrynose would appear to be steeper though?

Dave.

Steam straight up a 1 in 3? I'd like to see most people try!

UK gradients are given as the maximum gradient on the road (unlike alpine ones which I believe are averages over the road's full length).

This would appear to be the case for Rosedale Chimney which, looking at the get a map site, appears to climb to 300 m from about 150m (the Abbey is at about 130m) in the space of about a kilometre.

The steepest section looks to be in the middle of the hillside when the road kicks up from a elevation of 200m to 300m in a 500m stretch of road.

I make that 100/500 = 20% or 1 in 4.

The road is shown as having several distinct steep sections with only one short bit showing as a double chevron (i.e. 1 in 4 or greater).

The road certainly doesn’t average 1 in 3 over its full length. I very much doubt that any road (unless incredibly short) would do that.

So Rosedale Chimney peaks at 1 in 3, which is very steep indeed.

For comparison purpose, the (infamous) Hardnott Pass roses from 100m ASL to 393m ASL in a distance of about 2km but is also rated as 1 in 3.

If you go to Google maps and click on 'my maps' you can use a path profiler tool. When I used that it indicated that the Chimney was a max of about 17%, so there's probably a short bit of 33% to qualify for the signpost. Wrynose also has a 33% warning at the start, and I would say good portions of that climbe really are 1 in 3, but definitely not averaged along the entire climb. Again, Google shows it at about 22%. Hardknott is steeper still!

Dave.

The first bit of the climb up to the first hairpin was OK. I managed to sit down on this part and save my legs a little. Once you get round the first haipin you are hit by what looks more like a wall! You are then out of the saddle from here up to the second hairpin. After this it kicks up straight, probably 1 in 4 or 1 in 5. I tried to sit down, but as I did the front wheel quickly rose off the road and I rapidly got back out of the saddle just to stay on the bike. After a couple of hundred yards (well that's what it felt like) the gradient eases and I could get back in the saddle. At this point it started to pour with rain but there was no way I was going to stop now. A slow grind to the top completed the climb.

One thing I did notice was how much my arms ached. Suspect I was pulling rather hard on the bars just to keep going.

I enjoyed the photo and post. I've heard of this place near Rosedale (I went to the area a couple of years ago) but I didn't know it had a name.