HANGING GRIMSTON

KIRBY UNDERDALE, YORK

If there’s a climb in Britain with a more sinister name, I’ve yet to find it, and this beast of a road more than lives up to its unpleasant title. Sandwiched between the A64 and A166 in the Yorkshire Wolds, the ascent begins across a small stream just outside Kirby Underdale. It is immediately steep up a wonderfully smooth, dead straight, strength-sapping rise. This is followed by a gentle stretch, but the nice surface soon turns nasty as you approach some farm buildings. Next you’ll reach the first of two gates that bookend the middle section of the road as it bisects an empty, grassy field. The gradient increases as you cross the field up to the second gate, after which the climbing really kicks in. You begin a tough stretch of 1-in-6 on a now dreadfully pitted and deteriorating road and the climb remains steep and relentlessly rough until you reach the brow past the last tree on your left.