Bleadon Hill from Elborough

Start: Elborough Village GR 361592     Finish: Bleadon Hill lookout GR 359579
Distance: 2.2km       Height Gain: 123m

With a strongish west wind blowing, it seemed a good idea to head for something to the west so the wind could blow me home again - hence the choice of route. Out through Banwell, straight into the wind, it didn't seem such a great idea - but then, it would be ok once I was in the shelter of the hill itself... Stopping in Elborough to check the map, I realised I'd brought the wrong one - better do it from memory then.

The climb starts out of Elborough up past Hutton Garden Centre but gives you a rest for 200m or so before the left turn onto a very narrow lane and the start of the hill proper. This starts easily enough but a sharp right turn threatens an increase in gradient, which it delivers. There follows a 250m 1 in 6 section through overhanging woodland which had be breathing loudly through tight teeth and very glad to pull over it onto the more modest ascent above. Another 300m or so, still in a low gear as the legs definitely needed to recover from that very steep bit, and its up onto the top ridge - straight into that wind! Still - the  local lads pushing their bikes up the hill to the lookout were impressed.

Rating: Good climb which appears to stick out of surrounding flat stuff, but pleasant linked in with other steep stuff around Loxton and Banwell.
DP

Burrington Combe

Start: GR 477595 at junction of A368 and B3134                 Finish: GR 503573 Swymmer's Farm
Length: 4.3km     Height Gain: 212m   Max Gradient: about 1:10

After turning south from the A368, the climb kicks in almost straight away as the road rises from the meadowlands of Langford Green towards the wilder territory of the Combe. Crossing the cattle grid, the ground flattens as the road passes the old quarry workings but you can see that it will rise ahead, and rise it does. A step up to the Rock of Ages, flatter ground to follow and then a further step brings the sharp left turn where I expected the way to get harder. It doesn't. Woods on one side, open limestone moorland on the other - an idyllic setting for a perfectly reasonable climb. The road continues to rise in a series of steps so up and down the gears I went; but the climb allows you a steady rhythm. 1.3km from the sharp left bend the road veers right at a muddy car park and out of the Combe proper, over a second cattle grid. The climb is not over though, a further 70m is gained in the next 1.3km across the farmlands on the top of the Mendips before Swymmer's Farm is reached, all offering views down and north to Blagdon Lake or up and south across the tail of Black Down.

Rating: Worth doing in it's own right - not steep, but a considerable and enjoyable pull.

Shipham Road, Cheddar

Start: GR452545 at the junction of the A371 and B3135     Finish GR: 446563
Length: 1900m   Height Gain: 140m   Max gradient 1:8

Not to be confused with Shipham Lane which rises to Shipham out of Winscombe...

Shipham Road isn't the steepest of climbs, but it's long enough to notice and the gradient places demands on the legs all the way. From the moment you start northwards from the A371 you know you're climbing, gently at first, but the angle changes after about 400m and there is no real respite from here to the top. A slight right bend takes you into a dark wooded valley where the trees overhang the road and you set about gaining 25m in the next 200m of road. Through this and there is a brief easing past the quarry entrances before the angle returns for another 500m until a left bend at the end of the straight.
That's the thing with Shipham Road - it rises as a sequence of straights, each time you round one of the low angle bends you can see the next ribbon of road banked up before you. Much quieter than the A38 up Shute Shelve, and only 3km east of that route, this has to be the way over the Mendips in this section. Beyond the top there is a short, sharp dip down to Shipham followed by another rise - but if you fly down past Lillypool Farm fast enough, that one's easy!

Rating: Good grind. Recommended for inclusion in a longer day's cycling.
DP

Cleeve Hill Road

Start: Goblin Combe car park GR 458654    Finish: 472644
Length: 2.3km       Height Gain: 114m

A delightful steady pull with one hard section. Following the narrow road up from Goblin Combe you pass  a sequence of picturesque houses and their parked cars - which make the road especially narrow! Past these and out into wooded territory and a long rising straight. The straight is easy enough, but you can see that its concave and fore-shortening leaves you asking questions about what is to come. The answer proves to be 250m of hard pull from the end of the straight, round to the left and then back up right again. The left looks like it will throw you onto level ground going eastwards across the hill but instead the road switches back right for a short-n-hard conclusion. According to my map skills, this top section rises only 25m in that 250m - there's definitely a feel of more than 1:10 about it - I would place that second corner at about 1:6. Beyond this section the climb continues but far more reasonably now as the road crests this convexity to stretch ribbon like across the top before diving down Wrington Hill - watch the loose stuff on the right angle bend at the top.

Rating - Enjoyable, well worth including in a longer ride.
DP

A38 Shute Shelve

Start: GR 419548    Finish: GR 423561
Length: 1.4km        Height Gain: 67m

Would be pleasant but there's too much traffic. If you insist - start from the New Inn at Cross and pull north up the A38. A steady grind past the chicken farm, avoid getting mown down by passing petrol-heads through the narrows where the Strawberry Line crosses and continue up to the Texaco garage at the top. If you have the time, take the A371 towards Cheddar from Cross and come over the Mendips using Shipham Road - far better, and you still get the glide down the hill on the A38 at Churchill.
DP

Cheddar Gorge

Start GR466538   Finish 508542
Length 7.4km (to King Down Farm)
Height Gain 198m
Max gradient 1 in 5(ish)
Heading out to the gorge, one sunny day in October, I had no real idea what I was taking on. Would I get up? Would I get close? The last time I'd ridden a road-bike with any purpose had been twenty plus years ago. Still - new bike, new challenge - legs a bit trained from 6 miles each way to work a couple of times a week - give it a go.

Pulling up past the tourist shops at the base of the climb I was rapidly wondering if this was really such a bright idea! The angle isn't that steep, but if this was the base, what was I going to be in for further up. The first bit is though, the hardest. From the shops to the High Rock bend the road rises but allows a rhythm. Then comes the short hard leg burning bend as the road makes the step into the base of the wilder section of the gorge. If my assessment of the OS 1:25,000 map is correct, this is a rise of about 20m in 100m horizontally - 1 in 5, but it's short and my untrained legs just did it. Just. I don't get out of the saddle. I was out of the saddle.
And then gorgeousness. The road eases back and back so the climb can be enjoyed at a fluid rhythm with increasing speed and a wealth of 'how's he doin' that'? looks from the tourists. There is one more steepish bit as the road rounds Wind Rock but this is addictive fun and I just wanted to drive on to the top.
The top proves to be rather a long way away. The climbing continues through the sweeping bends until you emerge from the top of the gorge - and the road keeps going up. Not steeply, just up. Now in my view you haven't finished a climb until the road starts going down for a fair distance so up on the top of the Mendips, up with the stone walls and the sheep, you need to turn left at GR495534 to follow the dry valley up to King Down Farm. And then you find you haven't finished. Turn left and the road goes up again, across the farmed uplands until it finally 'tops out' at the tumulus GR504549, but this is very gentle territory.

Enjoyable? Oh yes! That feeling of 'done it', the towering gorge, the open uplands, the smooth tarmac... Time to find another hill - though not that afternoon as my untrained legs could only just get up the stairs! I really must go back and do this one again just to see what it feels like now.
DP

So I went back, more trained. It was easier. The section through Wind Gap is still a short, sharp pull. Ah, that top section through the woods at the top though! Delightfully smooth and fast. I don't think I got near Simon Warren's 13 minutes (OK, I know I didn't) - but the next time I have to do a time on this...
DP

Getting Going

There be roads on them there hills!
I've discovered I rather enjoy driving myself uphill on a bike. If you're looking a this you are probably similarly afflicted. The idea of the blog is to explore the road bike climbs in the Western Mendip area. I will be having a go at them; there may be some that you might like to take on. Hopefully readers will use the comments system to give me some prompts for climbs that I might want to try.
What to expect - descriptions of climbs arriving as I do them. I'll start with Cheddar Gorge as it's the first one I did after I bought the road-bike. As every one else has done this (so I gather anyway) you can compare my comments on it to your own thoughts - but be aware that I did this off the back of no hill climbs in about 30 years, so I found it harder than I should have.

I have a list of 25 that I shall look to take on. To qualify; a climb has to have a height gain of at least 100m and (originally had) to be entirely west of the easting 570. This may seem like an odd place to make the division - why not go for 600 and thereby be on the edge of the Cheddar and Bristol West 1:25,000 maps? In answer; 570 goes straight through the middle of Chew Vally Lake (aesthetically pleasing) and (more practically) there is only one climb that I can see on the maps which would cross this line. The route from Chew Magna to Dundry is the climb in question, but as there is a perfectly reasonable alternative to this one going up Limeburn Hill just to the west,  that leaves no climbs to conflict with the guide to Mendips East - someone else can do that one. See adaptation made in a later blog.
So what's the list?
Brockley Combe and Cookes Bridle Path (a made road) then the airport perimeter road so your finishing above the airport.
Cheston Combe up from Backwell, then up Backwell Hill Road.
Off the A38 at Lye Cross then follow Under Lane, then Sutton Lane, to Row of Ashes Fm GR515634.
Up the A38 from Cowslip Green to Bristol Airport.
Bleadon Hill from Elborough.
Bleadon Hill from Bleadon Bridge.
From Combe Lodge to Blagdon, then up Two Trees to Swymmer's Farm.
Compton Martin, up Highfield Lane to Butts Quarry Farm.
Compton Martin, up Harptree Hill, then the Old Bristol Road to Gibbets Brow.
From Townsend (GR569563) through East Harptree and up Smitham Hill to the WT station.
Bristol Hill out of Wells.
From Easton (GR512477) up Ebbor Lane then Deerleap and Pelting Drove.
Westbury-sub-Mendip, up Stancombe Lane then past Broadmead Quarry to the reservoir - removed from the list as it proves unsuitable for road bikes.
From Hill Farm at Rodney Stoke, up Westfield Lane and Broad Road to finish at the same reservoir (there is enough difference between these two that I think they can be counted as separate climbs).
From Draycott, up New Road. (Road closed for the next 18 months - as of July 2012).
From Wells up the Old Bristol Road
Cheddar Gorge.
Burrington Combe.
Shipham Road, Cheddar
From Cleeve, up Cleeve Hill Road.
From Branches Cross (Wrington), up Long Lane then through Redhill, turn left and up to GR497638
From Wrington, up Wrington Hill
From the traffic island at GR562633, up Limeburn Hill and then up past Elton Farm to GR 565658.
Winford, Dundry Lane, Winford Lane to GR553665.
And finally...
GR445566, south of Shipham, east along Long Bottom to Trotts Corner GR462564.
!!Replacement for New Road, Draycott... from Coley, up Litton Combe and then the A39 to Green Ore cross-roads.
Replacement for Stancombe Lane... Bath Road, Wells

The cut off at 100m immediately omits some considerable challenges - Monks Hill from Kewstoke up to Worlebury being one such, along with the various climbs up Pennard Hill because it's just not quite high enough. If my choices cause some debate - wonderful. I look forward to hearing which gems I've missed.
If I do get through all the list that will be a total of 4165m of climbing - the same height as the Western Breithorn in Switzerland...

The maps and cross section profiles that accompany the route are all made using the brilliant facility that is 'Bike Route Toaster'. If you don't know about this take a look - follow the link below.
BikeRouteToaster
DP