Final post - including the HARDEST climb and a bit of a shock discovery...

So, we have seen which of Sheffield's many hills is the steepest - but for a rider like me the short punchy ridiculously steep hills are actually easier than some of the less steep but longer hills.

There isn't really a scientific way to determine which was the hardest to climb. It is a very subjective thing. Hills that I find a real struggle might be much easier for others. If I somehow lost eight stone and 30 years, I would probably find them a lot easier too!

This was the Top 10 steepest hills:

The noticable thing here is that only one of the Top 10 is longer than 300 metres. This feels like a line in the sand for me. Anything less than 300 metres didn't really cause me real difficulties, so cannot be considered for the title of my hardest climb.

Waller Road is the exception in the Top 10, and I think the combination of being over 300m and also over 15% gradient has to put it in contention.

So, lets look at the 10 longest climbs on my list:

Twentywell was longest by a distance, but actually was reasonably easy due to the section in the middle where it drops back down a little and allows you to build speed for the final steep section. For me, it is some combination of gradient and length that hurts the most, so if you drop out the five shortest and the five with the lowest gradients, it leaves two more contenders; Jenkin Road and Highcliffe Road.

For me, along with Waller Road this feels like a really worthy top three. All three stand out even this far after the event as being the ones where I struggled most. As I say, purely subjective and purely personal choice, but I would place Waller Road in third. I did find it extremely tough, but I think part of that is that I thought it was much shorter, so was caught by surprise at having to keep going longer than I expected.

That leaves Jenkin Road and Highcliffe Road. Highcliffe is slightly shorter, but Jenkin is slightly less steep. For me, what swings it is that Jenkin Road had short sections that were much steeper and other sections where the gradient drops to around 5% so you could recover a little. For me, Highcliffe was just unrelenting; there is no point in the entire climb where the gradient changes by more than a % or two, so that clinches the number one spot.

There you have it, the Hardest Hill in Sheffield (for me) is Highcliffe Road. Try it if you dare; it is brutal whether you are walking or cycling.

And that is that.

Well, not quite!

There were a couple of suggestions for additional climbs given to me (thank you!!) 

Bonus Hill 1

First up was Lodge Lane. This was near the Rivelin Valley, where so many of the really nasty hills hide. The stats are:

So, very long compared to most, but as you will have started to expect by now, that means that the gradient was quite a bit lower. So, not one to trouble the overall list, or even the hardest hills. However, if prizes were given for scenic climbs, this would easily take home the trophy. There were a couple of switchbacks in the road where the gradient went over 15%, but what they gave was a fabulous view over the Rivelin Valley. This was actually quite lovely to climb up!

Bonus Hill 2

The other hill that was suggested to me was Pea Royd Lane. This is much further out of Sheffield than any of the others, and notably has been used several times as the site of a national hill climbing competition. I thought it would be interesting to end this blog with a slightly different challenge; which is: how much difference does an eBike actually make?

I drove out to Pea Royd Lane with both my eBike and my regular bike in the back of the car. They are basically the same bike, a Cannondale Synapse, just one has a motor - so it should be a really good way to judge how much difference the power assistance really makes.

It was really no surprise that the eBike made it easier, and no surprise that it was also quicker. I kind of expected that actually the real difference is that the eBike makes it possible; I didn't manage to get to the top of the climb on my regular Synapse at all! What came as a real shock, though, is that when I got on the regular bike I genuinely thought that there was something wrong with it. It was so sluggish, I pulled over after about 100m because I thought I had put the front wheel on wrong and the brakes were clamped on! No, the wheel spun freely. I got back on and strained up another 150m or so before I just couldn't keep going. Halfway up, and I was done!

Note that time - it took 3 minutes and 39 seconds to go 260m! To be fair, the gradient was around 15% (14.99% to be exact), so this was a very steep climb, and I suspect included at least a minute of trying to work out what was wrong with the bike before working out that what was wrong was me!

On the eBike, up I went with no problems. Got to the top, so a clear victory for the eBike. Even more startling was the time:

Again, look at the time; I was quicker up the full climb of 420m that I was for half of it on the regular bike even allowing for that minute of shocked fumbling with the wheels. The wattage is about right - the eBike in Turbo mode adds around 250 watts, so I was putting in a similar amount of wattage from my own legs.

That is what an eBike can do. It makes things easier, yes, but for an out of shape rider it also makes things possible. I couldn't have climbed most of these hills on a regular bike and as a consequence didn't go out for long rides in and around Sheffield just because of how difficult it would be. This challenge has proved beyond a doubt that there is nothing that Sheffield (the city of seven hills) can throw at me that I can't cope with. Over the course of this blog, I have gone from doing short commutes on the flattest route I can find, to going out for 50+km rides at weekends and seeking out hills to climbs and views to enjoy.

It has genuinely changed my cycling world. 

Thank you for reading, I hope it has been interesting. If any of you are inspired to get an eBike and change your own worlds, that would be truly amazing.