LLYWEL HILL

LLYWEL, POWYS

This climb – the venue for the 1969 National Hill climb – is a true oddity. It’s a dual carriageway set on a gradient that touches 20% in places. Why? Well, a military training ground sits at the top, so the road was built to facilitate the movement to and fro of large and slow vehicles. It’s simply bizarre to see the two narrow, parallel roads climbing the ridge separated by just a metre of grass. The benefit to cyclists of course is that you’ll never have traffic coming towards you, leaving you plenty of room to suffer. Starting the ascent in Llywel, it’s the lower slopes where the real pain is to be found, hitting that 20% for a short distance before easing back slightly. The road undulates upwards, steep in a few more spots, and then levels before the final kick. This last push is 16% but it feels much harder. The slope fades away as the two lanes merge and you cross a cattle grid on to the eerily sparse training ground to finish.