100 Greatest cycling climbs is a book I very much enjoyed reading. It is a look at some of the hardest climbs in the UK from Constitution Hill to Kirstone Pass and Ditchling Beacon. Quite a few I have ridden myself. A few like the ‘Bealach-Na-Ba’ climb in Scotland make you want to travel up there and have a go at climbing the 623 metres of ascent over 9Km. It must be a good hill climb, if you have to check weather forecast before attempting.

It is not strictly speaking the 100 hardest climbs, but, a cross section of 100 climbs with contributions from all main areas of the UK. Thus less hard climbs in Leicestershire make it in. But, that makes more sense than having 100 climbs all from Exmoor, Lake District and Wales.

The hills of Yorkshire

For every hundred climbs, I could probably find another 100 climbs to include. For example, one of the hardest climbs I did was a very little known climb from Lofthouse to Masham in Nidderdale. Also for every climb, you could look at a different approach to the summit. For example, Kirstone Pass is much more difficult if you tackle the short but steep way direct from Ambleside. But, overall I think the selection was very good and gives a good overview of the variety of climbs in the UK.

Horseshoe Pass – from classic time trial photos

For myself, cycling up hills, is the most attractive part of the sport. So it is perhaps no surprise I would like a book on cycling climbs. But, I think for the average cyclist, it is still interesting and may even inspire you to try and take on some of the climbs.

The rating for the climbs is quite subjective. I think at 11Km (ascent of 380 metres), the ascent of the Cat and Fiddle is worth more than a 4/10. But, that doesn’t really matter.

Good Things about 100 Greatest Hill Climbs

• Good Pictures of the different climbs
• Simple and easy to read and carry
• Good cross section of different UK climbs, you will probably have ridden at least some of them. And will be tempted to try others nearby.

Other Things That Would be Nice

• More stats e.g. average gradient of climbs
• Some info on best descents. e.g. My favourite ascent of Fleet Moss is from South to North because the descent into Hawes is so much fun (except if my mother is reading in which case I mean to say I get off and walk down)

Steepest Hills in Britain / UK

• Ffordd Penllech, Harlech, Gwynedd Wales – 40% on steepest part of hairpin!
• Rosedale Chimney, North York Moors – 33% (1 in 3)
• Constitution Hill, Wales – 30% ?
• Hardknott Pass, Lake District – upto 30%

Some Other 25% Climbs

• The Rake, Ramsbottom – 25%
• Honister Pass – 25%
• Shibden Wall, Halifax – 25%
• Buttertubs, Yorks – 25%
• Mow Cop – 25%
• Porlock Hill, Somerset – 25%

The author of the book Simon Warren helped organise the first urban hill climb race on Swain Lane London promoted by Rollapaluza CC. The event attracted a full field of 100 riders giving cyclist the chance to race up a 20% London street on closed roads. It would be great for more urban hill climbs to catch on. (Bristol  springs to mind)

100 Greatest Hill Climb – Amazon.co.uk

Hill Climb Page

I always like to see a bit of Yorkshire in my adopted home town. This vintage Bob Jackson cycle from Leeds stands out from the crowd.

Bob Jackson cycles have been hand building quality bikes for over 67 years. Based in Leeds they specialise in building Steel / Cromoly frames with the best Reynolds and Columbus tubing. The advent of carbon fibre has diminished the demand for steel frames from the top end of the market. Also, the mass produced light aluminium bikes of the far east, make home produced steel bikes have even more competition. Nevertheless, steel still has its advocates. The newest Columbus tubing is as light as Aluminium and even carbon fibre. Also for the tourer or commuter, a good quality steel frame can produce a very good ride.

How Not to Use A Chain.

Look how loose this chain is and where the rear dérailleur is. It is in the smallest back sprocket and smallest front chain ring. The effect is to make a chain that is too loose. It should be much tighter than this.

Bar end shifters on the drops.

Related

• Reynolds steel frames
• Bike Frame Materials
• Bike as Art

Further Reading

• Bob Jackson Cycles

A new bike auction site – Going Going Bike offers a dedicated bike auction site. It looks good and I like the efforts to deter thieves with the bike certificate of ownership initiative. There is no upfront fee only 5% of final selling price.

I am often reluctant to sell bikes, because you can lose a % of their real value. And they often come in useful as a source for parts. But, if I did sell my old hill climb bike, I might well use Going Going Bike.

There are an estimated 25 million unused bikes in the UK, so there’s obviously a market for selling second hand bikes.

If you want to buy second hand, buying from a bike auction site could be a good way to get a good value bike. It certainly looks preferable to buying from Gumtree where it is much harder to validate the ownership of the bike.

Related Posts

• Buying Second Hand Bikes
• Stolen Bikes

There was growing outrage today as a Daily Mail journalist was captured frequently flouting the rules of the law as he sped in his motor car at 35mph in  a 30mph zone – flagrantly breaking the law with a breathtaking disregard for the lives of other road users.

P.Duddy of The Daily Sanctimonious Drivel writes, if the supposedly morally upstanding Daily Mail have journalists breaking the legal speed limit, where will it end if not anarchy, falling house prices and moral breakdown? It wouldn’t be so bad, but, on one corner, you can clearly see he was not only driving above legal limit, but the car veered onto the wrong side of the road! He was obviously practising to try run over an old granny on the side of the road.

I was so filled with self-righteous disgust that I sped around the M25 at 95mph to get the story and photos to my editor. Unfortunately, congestion forced me to slow down, but, I was still able to text most of the story on my mobile phone.’

This is not the first Daily Mail Journalist to be caught breaking the law. But, with the Conservative party abolishing Speed cameras in a bold bid to cut down on the 3,000 lives lost on our roads every year – who is going to police these dangerous and frankly irresponsible people?

The story took a further twist, as it was revealed the ancestors of the Daily Mail’s editor were believed to be illegal immigrants from Denmark in about the 7th Century A.D.

Related

• Cycling England
• Jon Snow and cycling on pavement at Road CC

No cycling into the sunset. Photo by Front Row – Brighton, UK

No cycling, I think. Photo by Front Row – Brighton, UK

Photo by GP Twisted

No Cycling, even those with poor eyesight, we have made sign nice and big. Photo by Just A Hero

Photo by Pond Spider

– no cycling up these steps – and please don’t play bar billiards around here either.

The Man from Del Monte – he say Go On!

Photo by Katherine Kenny

No cycling when temperature dips below -2 degrees. And welcome to Brighton.

Related

• Cycling photos of Year

“I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn’t it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailer. We are getting soft… As for me, give me a fixed gear!”

- Henri Desgrange, Founder of the Tour de France, L’Equipe article of 1902

A book devoted to the desirability of fixed / single speed bikes. For devotees of these sleek elegant machines, they will probably not need any justification for their passion. But, if you do need it, ‘The Cult of Fixed‘ gives many reasons.

As for me, I’ve never owned a fixed. So I feel a bit like a kid admiring the chocolate box of Willy Wonka, despite never having being able to eat them for myself. I’ve just stuck to eating boring old, economies of scale, made in Taiwan, cheap and cheerful chocolate. (i.e. mass produced Aluminium / Carbon fibre bikes)

It is interesting how passionate people can get about fixed gear cycling. I may not wholly understand it. But, I like it.

But, ask any of the 190 pro cyclists in the Tour de France, who have just passed over innumerable mountain passes, whether they would like to go back to the days of ‘purity’ single speed a la Desgrange. – You wouldn’t be given any answer just a stony glare and grim dismissal.

“Fancy road and mountain bikes are clearly no longer king of the roost – or the road. It’s the scards of fixed-gear, town, single-speed and other urban bicycles that are drawing the crowds.” Eli Milchman, Wired.

- Well not entirely, but, if you like fixed you’ll probably like the book.

The Cult of Fixed at Amazon.co.uk

Single speed bikes

There are some days, when you can feel quite vulnerable pedalling a lonely furrow amidst the stream of passing cars and lorries. This week has been a salutatory reminder of the dangers on our road. Wednesday, I went for a 70 mile cycle ride to High Wycombe; where-ever I cycled I seemed to come across closed roads – The A40 was  closed due to a fatal accidents. Later on the road to High Wycombe, another A road had just been closed due to a headon collision. The day before, I passed by a serious collision in Marston, Oxford. (Not the first time I’ve seen an accident at that particular junction.)

So with this grim anecdotal evidence, all in a short space of time, it was rather reassuring to stumble across this report, which states the health benefit of cycling far exceed the potential costs.

For the individuals who shift from car to bicycle, we estimated that beneficial effects of increased physical activity are substantially larger (3 – 14 months gained) than the potential mortality effect of increased inhaled air pollution doses (0.8 – 40 days lost) and the increase in traffic accidents (5 – 9 days lost). Societal benefits are even larger due to a modest reduction in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and traffic accidents.

Conclusions: On average, the estimated health benefits of cycling were substantially larger than the risks relative to car driving for individuals shifting mode of transport.

Citation: de Hartog JJ, Boogaard H, Nijland H, Hoek G 2010. Do The Health Benefits Of Cycling Outweigh The Risks? Environ Health Perspect :-. doi:10.1289/ehp.0901747

The bad news is that these statistics were calculated from the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the incidence of bike accidents to distance travelled is one of the lowest in the world. In the UK and US, the typical average mortality from traffic accidents is likely to be higher than the average of 5-9 days of the Netherlands. But, even so, even if mortality rates in UK are triple Netherlands, the benefits of cycling still far outweigh costs. See: Cycling Fatality Rates  by Country

Why Is Cycling Perceived as So Dangerous?

Why then do people avoid cycling for fear that it is dangerous?

• High Visibility of Traffic Accidents
• Low Visibility of poor health related illness. If you get heart disease or other health related problems, you don’t link it to a decision to drive rather than cycle.
• Cycling on a busy road can feel dangerous (with cars passing close by at high speeds). Stuffing your face with pancakes, doesn’t feel dangerous (it is quite the opposite)
• If a child was involved in a cycling accidents, the parents may feel guilty that they had allowed them to do something dangerous. If the child gets obesity onset diabetes in their 40s, they don’t feel guilty for allowing their kids to sit and play computer games all day.

Related

How Dangerous is cycling?

I’ve always been curious why single speed bikes can be sold for double the price of a relative road bike. A road bike has more components more gears (and often is lighter). Single Speed bikes are supposed to be sleek, simple, easy to maintain. With simple steel Cro-mo frames you would expect them to be cheaper. But, actually they are more expensive, which seems to defeat some of the point of them. I guess, economies of scale have lot to explain, if you make bikes in big numbers, you can just get better value.

Single Speed bikes do have the capacity to turn my head, I’ve seen this one a few times in Oxford, and liked its bold simple colours. Create bikes are not too well known, but, they are cheap for single speed. £200 – £300 rather than double that (e.g. like popular Charge Plug). To me it looks the archtypal bike – classic frame geometry, steel frame. Simple design.

All Create bikes are fitted with flip-flop hubs which means you can switch between single speed (freewheel) and fixed rear wheel.

At £270, I could justify spending money (I’d worry too much about leaving a £600 bike locked in centre of Oxford), but, practicality may rule it out. I invariably use panniers, and like most other single speed, they are too cool to have pannier eyes – too bad!

• Single Speed Bikes
• Best Commuting bikes
• Single Speed Bikes at Wiggle
• Create Bikes.com

Photo by _{Will Cyclist (2009)}

It has been a great Tour de France. There are few moments watching sport, when you just want to admire the supreme physical effort, and as David Duffield would have as say – ‘Chapeau!’

It was gripping stuff as the diminished peleton hit the lower slopes of the Col de Tourmalet, the domestiques riding themselves into the ground to keep the pace high. Slowly the Km to the top counts down. You knew Schleck would attack – but, when? (well off course, in one of the innumerable ITV4 commercial breaks). But, it didn’t matter – there were the two gladiators, Shleck and Contador fighting it wheel to wheel, shoulder to shoulder on the misty slopes of the Col De Tourmalet; this is the drama of cycling. Two athletes at the peak of their sport, desperately riding away from the rest of the peleton.

It’s easy to sit in your archmair and shout at Schleck – ‘go on attack him’ But, when you’ve had a three weeks of racing, and your hanging on to the edge of your limit, ascending Col de Tourmalet at a terrific pace, next to the greatest cyclists of your generation – that is all easier said than done. But, Schleck kept trying. It didn’t quite break the elastic, but, you knew they had both given everything trying to wrestle the yellow jersey.

Maybe, the other day, Contador should have waited when Shleck’s chain went,  but, that seemed forgotten yesterday. Contador did once try to drop Schleck, but, when that failed, he didn’t contest the sprint, and the two gladiators could be seen embracing after finish line.

Marvellous stuff!

Related

Photos of Col de Tourmalet Stage at Graham Watson

(A cunning anti theft device, as soon as it touches the ground, the alarm sounds.)

Last year 23,000 bikes were reported stolen in London, an average of 63 per day — up 30 per cent on last year, with unreported thefts estimated to add another 40,000 to 60,000.

A recent survey found that 1 in 6 of people with a stolen bike, later saw it for sale online. (London Cycle Campaign)

This site BikeSh displays bikes recently put online for sale.

Campaigners are also hoping the police will take the issue more seriously as often reporting a stolen bike is met with less than an enthusiastic response.
-
(you mean you didn’t spend £95 on two D-Locks for your bike – no, but, the bike is only worth £120)

Often it feels like either the bike is either too cheap to be worth bothering about. Of if we have an expensive bike stolen, we will be criticised for having an expensive bike. (Well, if you will spend a lot of money on a bike, I mean you could at least have put a shopping basket or plastered it with rubbish pink paint to make it look unattractive…)

That would be a great way to suggest reducing car crime – make every one drive a cheap second hand robin reliant, painted like a patchwork quilt, with an anti theft system as expensive as the car.

How to stop bike getting stolen

Preventing Bike THeft

Best Bike Locks