Birth of a challenge

The challenge came about because I was looking for a different route home. I was getting up my hill about 70% of the time, and getting bored of it.

There is an alternative. I’ve walked it quite a few times, as it is a shortcut to and from our nearest supermarket. It is much shorter, as it goes straight up the hill. In fact, the first part is a (steep) footpath then steps through a wood, so you can only actually cycle the top section. This starts with a short, sharp 90m climb on a road called Prospect Place, then eases off before going steep again this time on Prospect Road. OK, so it is quite a bit steeper, in fact so steep that there are handrails to help you when you are walking up, but short and steep felt more suited to my physique. I am big, so have more power than stamina. Altogether, just 260m of (admittedly hard) effort. This should work, right?

This is that first section, courtesy of Google Maps. It really is steep!

My plan was instead of dropping into a really low gear on that first section and spinning the pedals to crawl up at walking pace, I would put it into a middle gear and stand up on the pedals. Then I could use the easier middle section to get my breath back, then up on the pedals again for the final steep bit. I would be like Marco Pantani ("the Pirate") on Alpe d’Huez.

It is safe to say that the plan didn’t work.

I pushed the bike to the bottom of Prospect Place. I was in the middle gear on the lowest ring. After a few minutes to compose myself, I set off.  The first 30 metres were easy, I was feeling good. The next 20 were harder, the next 20 harder still and I began to struggle. The next 10 went by very slowly, and then it happened.

My chain snapped.

I couldn’t even pretend that I might have made it. I had to stop for five whole minutes holding my broken chain before my heart stopped thudding against my ribs. And I mean it was THUMPING. I genuinely thought I was going to be sick right there at the side of the road.

I had bitten off more than I could chew.

Still, it was nagging at me. Was it because I was in the wrong gear? Is it just that bikes aren’t designed to have 20 stone lumps exerting that much force into it? Like before when I realised that the bike was the problem, not me, I began to convince myself that this time it was the hill that was the problem. Clearly, it was too steep. I mean, it is probably the steepest hill in the whole of Sheffield, isn't it? Almost certainly.

As ever these days, when a question like this nags away at you, there is only one thing you can do. Google.

A bit of internet searching later, and what do I find? A forum discussion that has been going since 2003 about what the steepest hill in Sheffield is. Reading through, what you quickly realise is that (a) Sheffield has a lot of very steep hills, each with their own disciples claiming it to be the steepest, and (b) Sheffield’s citizens are a very funny bunch. There is apparently almost no hill in Sheffield that someone hasn’t gone up on a BMX while smoking a fag, or that they haven’t heard of being ridden by a one-legged Chinese man. Several hills had recurring mentions, including my very own Prospect Place. There were several people who had walked or cycled some of the hills, but no-one had tried them all. The really steep ones would be dismissed because they were too short, but equally the long ones would be disregarded because the steep bit was only a small part of it, so the rest was relatively easy.

Over the years that the forum has run, lots of roads have been suggested but there is almost no agreement as to which is the steepest. The big three contenders seemed to encapsulate this:

·      Blake Street. This is recognised as the steepest hill in Sheffield. Mainly because the actual Sheffield they mean here is really ‘old Sheffield’ which is what used to be Sheffield at some unspecified time in the past when parts of what is now Sheffield were villages on the outskirts. [As an incomer, I don’t really understand this at all!]

·      Jenkin Road. This is very popular because of three factors. Firstly, it is very long (over a kilometre). Secondly, it has a section reputed to hit over 25% gradient. Thirdly, it was a feature of the 2014 Tour de France where the eventual winner, Nibali, launched an attack up Jenkin Road and rode into the yellow jersey for the first time.

·      Hagg Hill. This is probably the one that most people think is the winner of the title. It is longer than Blake Street but not as long as Jenkin Road, and has a consistent steep gradient. The junction at the top has apparently been changed to give cars coming up right of way over those on the main cross road, as anyone stopping their car at that point is likely to be in trouble. Shame it isn’t in old Sheffield, really.

Before I knew it, I was using a website I had found (www.plotaroute.com) which you can use to plan cycling routes, but which crucially shows the highest and lowest points above sea level, and also calculates the gradients along that route.

I used that to calculate the length and average gradient of each of the three, and added in Prospect Place for good measure.

Can you guess what my challenge is yet?

The results, in alphabetical order:

	Distance	Average Gradient	Maximum Gradient
Blake Street	180m	14.4%	20%
Hagg Hill	270m	16.7%	20%
Jenkin Road	1020m	9.1%	23%
Prospect Place	90m	17.8%	20%

So, there you have it. Prospect Place is the steepest hill in Sheffield. Its average gradient is the highest, so it is clearly the steepest. Of course, it is also the shortest by some distance. But what about Blake Street? Its only twice as long, and 3.5% less steep – so would that be harder or easier than Prospect Place? Hagg Hill clearly must be harder than both, as it is almost the same gradient as Prospect Place but the same length as both Prospect Place and Blake Street together. Of the four,  Jenkin Road has the steepest section, and is longer than all the others put together – would that make it toughest of the lot? And what about the other hills mentioned on the forum? Each of them had people who thought they were the hardest, steepest, toughest.

I ran the ones that got repeated mentions through the same website, and in all had a list of 26 hills. But, how can you decide which is hardest?

I gave it some thought. Clearly what we need here is a spreadsheet with some kind of complicated calculation. Luckily, I am an accountant. Spreadsheets are what I do.

I worked out a suitably convoluted weighting system, and this allowed me to rank the 26 hills in an order that I felt showed how difficult they were. Jenkin Road came top, mostly because I felt that a long tough hill would be harder than short but really tough hill.

Does that make it sound like it is reasonably easy, just long? Ha! Check out this video of the Giant Shimano Tour de France team practicing on Jenkin Road - those are professional cyclists looking like they are almost at a standstill!!

The question is, what makes a hill hard? Length or steepness? How much should the maximum gradient affect the rating?

There really is only one way to find out which is the hardest hill.

That's right - THE CHALLENGE.

Someone is going to have to try and cycle up all 26 of those hills.

Me.