I took a day off work, and went up five more of the steepest hills in Sheffield. Could any of them threaten the top of the rankings table? We will see...
Sheffield Hill # 17
Conduit Road was my first port of call, and there was a fair bit of climbing just to get to it. Conduit Road runs near the Management School building which is part of Sheffield University. It was pretty steep, and much like many of the climbs on this list relatively short.
With 29m of elevation (according to Google Maps) and 221m length (from PlotaRoute), the gradient came in at 13.12%. That is a steep climb, and put it firmly in the top 10.
Sheffield Hill #18
After Conduit Road I had the lovely experience of a long fast descent from Crookes all the way down to Hunter's Bar roundabout. On a Friday afternoon during the holiday season and with travel still reasonably restricted due to Covid-19, this was an absolute joy on very quiet roads. I hit 60km/h at some points, and if I was braver could probably have pushed it higher. That's why we struggle up those hills; so we can fly back down again!
Still, soon enough I got to Hunter's Bar and after a left turn onto Ecclesall Road South found myself at the bottom of Botanical Road. This is a lovely quiet road, and I had the joy of riding past a small family group pushing their bikes up. Hopefully, they didn't realise I was on an eBike and were impressed by my climbing ability!
As you can see, my speed was reasonably high, which is usually a sign that the climb isn't too steep. Sure enough, the official statistics are that the gradient was just under 10% after climbing 31m in 312m.
Sheffield Hill #19
The next climb, Dobbin Hill, was a bit of a surprise. I had walked a few of the roads in this area, and was confused as to why anyone had suggested one of them might be the steepest hill in Sheffield. Clearly, I had never walked up this particular one! It was indeed very steep; the start was pretty easy as you can see from the elevation chart below, but it soon ramps up to be much more challenging.
However, that first section meant that the overall gradient was pretty low at just 8.7% after climbing 49m in 565 distance. I think Strava must have dropped out part way into the ride; either that or it has got really mardy after I decided to use Google Maps and PlotaRoute to get a more accurate reading!
I could have gone back and just done the steepest part, but calculations suggest it doesn't get much beyond 11%. That is steep, but never going to challenge most of the roads on this list!
Sheffield Hill #20
This seemed to be a day of riding parts of roads, as this hill (Carr Bank Lane) was the third in a row where I decided to just record the steep section rather than the whole road. This has been a bit of a quandary for me, to be honest. Both Jenkin Road and Twentywell Lane have very short sections that could probably challenge the gradient of Hagg Hill. My view was originally that I should find the road whose full length had the steepest gradient, but there have been a few where the road reaches a maximum height and then either levels out or goes back downhill so it just feel right to include those stretches. If I had to be absolutely honest, a fair part of that decision was because none of them really had any chance of hitting the top of this list. The ones currently at the top are all full road stretches, so snipping some of the longer roads doesn't really invalidate the list, and gives them their chance to shine. That was until I got to Carr Bank Lane.
When you stand at the bottom of Carr Bank Lane, it rises up like a wall of tarmac in front of you. This was clearly one that was going to be very high up the list indeed. Except that - it is a road in two parts. It isn't just a steep bit that then eases. It is a steep bit that becomes a different road (Armthorpe Road) if you carry on straight, so you have to turn left into a different road (Carr Bank Close) then immediately right and you are back on Carr Bank Lane; but a much easier climb. I've included a map so you can see what I mean. Its nominally one road, but is really two roads with the same name. This one was a real quandary.
That first section is very short indeed. Not as short as Strava thought, but also had a bit more elevation than 0m!! The actual measurements were that it was just 59m long so one of the shortest on the list (in fact, just one single metre longer than Fox Hill), but with 9m of elevation. With my breath held in case it made a mockery of my entire blog, I ran it through the spreadsheet. The gradient was 15.3%.
Phew!!
Very high up the list (and deservedly so), but thankfully not right up there at the top. Disaster avoided...
Sheffield Hill #21
Final hill of the day (or so I thought) was one that I had been dreading. I had done a step challenge a few years ago, and in my quest to find different places to walk to build up my step count, I had found myself walking up Highcliffe Road a couple of times. Walking up it (back when I was a bit younger and quite a bit fitter) was seriously hard work. It is steep, and it just keeps going. Highcliffe isn't just a name, it is a fairly accurate description. If walking up it was hard, what would cycling up it be like?!
There is no way I would have made this without my eBike. This is a monster of a climb. It might not challenge for the steepest hill, but when I consider the touighest road to climb in Sheffield, this one is going to be right there in the mix. Therefore, I have included the full set of charts.
Strava cut it a little short again (must have been having a tough day) and the correct length is 673m, so the 4th longest road on the list so far. With 83m of elevation, while not at the top of the steepest gradients with an average of 12.3%, it is significantly steeper than any of the other longer climbs. There is no let up either until the last 10 metres; it is a slog from the word go right to the very top.
There is actually a little bit of a run up to the start, as the road that leads into Highcliffe Road has a nice downhill section - but fools like me who for some reason feel they have to stop at the bottom of each climb, start the recording and then get going get no benefit from it. The things I do for this challenge!
That should have been that for the day, but for some reason I had recovered enough on my ride back home that I decided I needed to try Twentywell Lane again; and for the sole reason that my heart rate monitor hadn't given me a reading when I did it for the first time. So, up I went again. I got one, which was nice. It was 154 bpm average, so nothing special.
When on earth did cycling up Twentywell Lane become a bit of an afterthought? A bit of a, well, ho hum - might as well since I was passing kind of climb?! I used to have to get off and walk going up there not so many years ago. I used to plot routes to avoid having to go up it to get home!
This, if nothing else, should tell you what a difference an eBike can make to an unfit, casual cyclist's life. It has genuinely changed my perceptions about what I can do on a bike, in fact it has completely changed my entire mindset. Instead of intricately planning routes to try to make them as flat as possible, I just don't care what hills are on the route now. In fact, I now look for a good hill to include.
Come to think of it, I'm now the kind of cyclist who actually enjoys going up the steepest hills that Sheffield has to offer!!
What am I going to do when this challenge is finished? Well, I'm going to find out pretty soon - there are only five hills left on the list.
Before I go, I have an updated table for you to enjoy. No change at the top, with Hagg Hill still sitting just above Prospect Place. As you can see, Carr Bank Lane jumped into 5th place, with Highcliffe Road breaking into the top 10 despite being much longer than any of the steeper climbs above it. Still, Blake Street is in that final group of climbs, and is the last of the "big four" that were most often mentioned as the steepest hills that Sheffield has to offer. Could there be a last gasp winner?
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