Thing with the “100 best road climbs” is, all you need are stronger legs and better functioning lungs. If you can’t ride no 87 now give it 2 or 3 weeks solid practice and you’ll get it sorted. You could spend years of your life practising jacobs ladder or skiddaw and still never get a clean run.

Garburn from Dubbs is a good shout as a climb since it was surfaced (and no doubt ruined a damn good descent – I never tried it myself) not too tech but a long long climb, lungbuster – worth a go, descent into kentmere is none to shabby too 🙂

Longsleddale to top of gatesgarth is another “not for mortals” but in sections is fairly climbable up till brownhowe bottom then it’s just silly steep – like the keppel cove zigzags

<edit> Did mastilles years ago, think I made it ninety odd percent of the way up, doubt I’d do aswell today, been meaning to go back for a rematch but lakes is easier to get to 😕

Fremmy edge seems tantalisingly doable aswell

Doesn’t matter if you don’t clean it – can still be a great experience.

Ahh, Mastiles. It’s a ramp test – slowly gets steeper and steeper though never outrageously steep. Get the right line and it’s a decent surface, get it wrong and you are in to sections of loose rubble.

Another Dales one is Gilbert Lane which is the track leading from the top of Kidstones over to Semer water. Mostly straightforward, there’s one short technical section that will probably be unrideable uphill for most.

As with descents, the best climbs are those you feel you could always do slightly better on, whether that’s faster or to clean it.

Op, I think this is a great idea. You could do a book, I’m sure a few of us on here could help with the write up. At the very least you could do a webpage devoted to the topic. Also, have you considered emailing Mark. A regular section in the mag, a one or 2 page write up per issue would be would be worth considering. It’s certainly something I would read.

Hmmm… Nope, it’s further north than that.

It’s virtually all off road on an old railway path which varies from tarmac to mud to gravel with a bit of scrappy path through Consett- it does have some small dips in it but nothing longer than say 50m which in context I still think of as a climb.

A child could ride all of it quite happily but by the time you’ve gone there and back you’ve done 80 km and made one of the odder looking strava rides you’ll ever see. Most people will know it as the long descent into Newcastle at the end of the C2C.

This is pretty much it: https://app.strava.com/segments/4227883?filter=overall

edit: (it was a bit of a silly suggestion to make the list more than just unridable 17% drags)

I’ve done Fremington Edge once – first ride on new bike. Apart from the gate I got to about 100 metres from the top before running out of oomph 😳 It was just at the section where there’s curious ribbed bedrock that you ride over. The bike has 1×10 so I was getting used to that (my excuse anyway)

Be interesting to go back and have another go – the upper section looked a bit snowy on Saturday.

Minch Moor – yes its trail centre but it’s 1300 feet and has a couple of techy bits. Has a cairn at the top and everything!

https://www.strava.com/segments/939027

Golspie Black
Not massive but some of it is really tricky, I didn’t clean it that’s for sure

https://www.strava.com/segments/959734

Glen Finglas
Not technical at all but a soul crushing grind up a never ending fireroad. Stunning views on a nice day though
https://www.strava.com/activities/50975204/segments/1217234743

The 100 road climbs books are not just about the biggest or toughest – so it seems to be worth mentioning “fun” trail centre climbs.

Like the first singletrack climb on TNF trail at Grizedale.

Or Whites Level at Afan.

We use it as a means to access the bridleways, never done the full TNF trail myself.

I think someone was telling me it was used in reverse in an enduro race – and was really hard.

Was going to suggest the TNF climb. Did it for the first time the other week (I rarely do trail centres), was in behind a mate who got to the switchbacks about halfway up and said “I can never get these right” and stopped! Since I was right in behind him I had to stop as well though I’m not sure I’d have got the second turn.

Got to agree with the sentiment that unlike road climbs which are mostly doble by anyone fit (it’s just a matter of fitness and suffering Vs speed), MTB climbs are far more subjective.

A roadie who’d never ridden off road could go up 95% of Skiddaw even if it is 20% higher than the Belach na Bar road, but hate it becasue of the rocky bit mid way. Likewise an avid MTB’er would love the challenge of those bits, but hate the other 95% of mostly featureless but very steap climbing.

Mastiles was my first proper off roading back in 1988, before then we messed around in woodlands and moors above Kildwick. Mastiles rules it is still a great ride from kilnsey to malham out and back finishing with an awesome desent

https://www.strava.com/segments/2171932 . Way harder then Fremington edge or Mastilles lane . Half a dozen beasts around Buckden as well .

https://www.strava.com/segments/8884125 Buckden Pike anti clockwise , possibly the Dales hardest ?

Certainly Buckden Rake is is a decent little climb, steep in places. So Buckden Rake, the steep bit of Kidstones on the road, then Gilbert Lane….

Ingleborough from the Ingleton side? That’s quite an effort.

How about the Calf from Sedbergh? Cleanable but tough and long…

Or Cam High Road from Bainbridge. Straight as an arrow, long as hell but nowhere particularly desperate.

Agree that Porter Clough (aka the bastard) is a Sheffield rite of passageLink – it’s not as rocky as it used to be, but just as steep.

I like to think of it as the first part of a three part exam

Part 2 is Jumble Lane on Houndkirk – rocky, but not too steep or two long

Once you’ve mastered that go for Lenny Henry Hill. Again the bottom half isn’t as technical as it once was, thanks to SCCC, but it serves it’s purpose to wear you out before the rocky section. And just when you think you’re almost there, the gate not far away, the lungs bursting, there’s a couple of nasty rocks to catch you out.

That’s the one.
Has it all, just doable to the bridge, a hike-a-bike after that, then back on the bike to the hut, with stunning scenery all around.