First-time poster on this thread! Normally up north I ride the '94 Dyna Tech Diablo that I keep with the in-laws in County Durham but I had the chance to take my (modern, sorry) road bike this time.
A few years ago someone bought me the official "100 Greatest [UK] Cycling Climbs" book and in the last year or so I've started to try and tick some of them off whenever I'm not too far away (I also joined the 100 Climbs Strava club!) There's also a second 100 climbs in the sequel that I've been starting to do, and today I planned to do three of those near Stanhope - Cuthbert’s Hill (#153), Peat Hill (#154) and Unthank Bank (#155).
There's a cluster of very testing hills in this part of the North Pennines, probably the toughest of them is Chapel Fell (highest paved road in England) which I'd done last winter, just a couple of miles away. So I knew what I was letting myself in for but nevertheless it was still tough going today in some proper wilderness - way up, totally deserted and very exposed, chilly hilltops, and I got battered by the wind many times (this weather is what passes for late May up here, apparently). I'd been hoping for decent weather but after a couple of wet days in the end I settled for just dry weather - and even then it rained.
Peat Hill was up first, before I’d really hit my stride. The super-steep start (must be 25+%?) came out of the blue and I’m not too proud to say I was in 34x34 pretty quickly. At some point the gradient must have eased off a bit, but I don’t really remember that.
Short downhill and then straight into Cuthbert’s Hill, which was a nice little climb (don't get me wrong, there was still some 20%), I remember thinking I'd have quite enjoyed this one if it hadn’t come so soon after the last one.
After that came some rainy, very windy, hilly stuff heading back up towards Parkhead station, a famous cafe stop on the coast to coast route. It was slow, into a howling headwind and not too pleasant to be honest. Good views at the top at least! Then down Crawleyside Bank (also in the top 100), and Unthank Bank was left. I knew it was going to be straight into the wind, so I had a flapjack, closed my eyes and hoped there would be enough left in the legs. It was steep and twisty with a beautiful tight, steep S bend leaving the town at the start (even received admiring glances from some pedestrians!) then just more grinding it out into the wind as the road opened out into the open countryside - more deserted wilderness.
All in all a good couple of hours some excellent cycling roads, despite the weather. Strava activity is here if you're interested, I've posted the veloviewer images of the climbs:
https://www.strava.com/activities/2406609707/
