Start: GR553487 Climb: 201m Horizontal Distance: 3.5km
Oh yez! Oh yez! This is a climb to write home about. The average climb gradient of 1 in 17 doesn't sound too bad, but bear in mind that there is a 1/2 km break in the middle of this so it's actually 1 in 15, and that's where the hard work kicks in!
Starting out from Wells you follow the A39 until a road name sign on the left indicates that it's time to turn left. You've already been going uphill, though not savagely, the left turn steepens the gradient and makes the right turn that follows almost immediately a harder task. The road is narrow, but well surfaced with surroundings of trees and then fields - not that you get to notice this much!
I'd had my eye on this hill for a while having met it when visiting a rather excellent garden at a house towards the base a couple of years ago. I remembered having to use the gears on the car quite a bit for getting up it - I remembered well!
So what's involved..?
As you can see from the cross-section, the first km has a steady pull, doable but work. Then comes a significant steepening but this hard section doesn't last - there's a slight downhill for a brief rest. Then the real work starts. The next 2km offers no respite as the road climbs steadily and sufficiently steeply to hurt. The cross section appears to show a constant gradient but a closer look at the OS map reveals the reality; there is an increase in gradient for the last 450m. There's a hard short section at the end of the long straight, you see it from well off and it looks serious. What you see is what you get though, the gradient isn't maintained as the road takes the slight left bend so you can relax for a 100m or so. And then the real test. You see it as one long straight, you've done the bends that keep you guessing - now it's there before you, the climb to the summit. It's 60m up in 400m horizontal. Head down, keep pushing, keep going.
You may gather I found this one tough. Most of it is steady grind, but a the harder end. It's that constant flow of effort that gives getting up Old Bristol Road such a feeling of achievement - the hard bits have all come after fairly hard bits, there is no steady 1 in 20 on here.
Rating: Come and do it - it's better than Cheddar. Different to the parallel road on the A39 Bristol Road. In a sense it takes on the same challenge - but this is steeper and more intense.
Better? I'd say so, a sharper pull and far less traffic - but Bristol Hill is a good route too.
DP
Oh yez! Oh yez! This is a climb to write home about. The average climb gradient of 1 in 17 doesn't sound too bad, but bear in mind that there is a 1/2 km break in the middle of this so it's actually 1 in 15, and that's where the hard work kicks in!
Starting out from Wells you follow the A39 until a road name sign on the left indicates that it's time to turn left. You've already been going uphill, though not savagely, the left turn steepens the gradient and makes the right turn that follows almost immediately a harder task. The road is narrow, but well surfaced with surroundings of trees and then fields - not that you get to notice this much!
I'd had my eye on this hill for a while having met it when visiting a rather excellent garden at a house towards the base a couple of years ago. I remembered having to use the gears on the car quite a bit for getting up it - I remembered well!
So what's involved..?
You may gather I found this one tough. Most of it is steady grind, but a the harder end. It's that constant flow of effort that gives getting up Old Bristol Road such a feeling of achievement - the hard bits have all come after fairly hard bits, there is no steady 1 in 20 on here.
Rating: Come and do it - it's better than Cheddar. Different to the parallel road on the A39 Bristol Road. In a sense it takes on the same challenge - but this is steeper and more intense.
Better? I'd say so, a sharper pull and far less traffic - but Bristol Hill is a good route too.
DP
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