Sleights Moor – Simon Warren #147
- SW Rating: 7/10
- Wheelygood Rating: Medium
- Length: 1.88 miles
- Avg. gradient: 6%
- Category: 3
- Parking: There are some Pay and Display car parks in Grosmont
- Strava Segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/16336549
If you want to improve your climbing, the North York Moors (or Yorkshire Dales) are fantastic as there’s nothing flat around here.
You begin in the small town of Grosmont and from the off the gradient comes straight to you without much as a ‘Hi there!’ You go from flat into mid teens pretty much straight away and, as there are likely to be cars parked on the road and this is the UK, you will probably find that drivers will keep on coming at you. It’s not busy, but can have its share of tourists in the summer. Thinking, and wishing, you were a bit wider will help take your mind off the gradient, which just doesn’t relent through the town itself and, because of the houses along the roadside, you’ll have to keep it going – after all, it just wouldn’t do to have anybody thinking that you are finding it hard!
Once you’re out of the town, the main road bears left but you will turn right and onto the actual moor road. Buried in the hedge is a 33% sign, but don’t worry – that doesn’t happen for a while yet. Or ever. You begin to wind your way up the road which opens up into countryside with nice fields, trees and things. The slope backs off a bit here, but not by very much. Don’t worry – there’s still plenty of this one to go!
Around 1/3 of a mile further up, and you’ll come across another few houses and a right hand bend. As you wheel your way around the corner, you’ll see another 33% sign and the road rears straight up in front of you. Judging from my spidey sense, experience (and confirmed by the GPS data), this doesn’t get to 33% – it only just reaches 23 which, if you’ve ever ridden Rosedale Chimney, will come as a considerable consolation. It’s one of those ramps which looks much worse that it really is and, by the time it really bites, you’re most of the way to the top. It has all the hallmarks of a classic job lot of road signs situation: it just doesn’t ever feel anywhere near that 33%.
Once past this ramp, the very steep parts are now behind you and, in fact, the whole climb settles down considerably. You’re now heading slowly past the higher farmland and open fields towards the moorland, not that you can see it yet. This whole section is a nice, steady, pull with nothing really into double digits and you can get into the swing of it, although the gradient isn’t perfectly steady. As your mind wanders just a bit, you might begin to feel the temperature drop ever so slightly; I rode this in February and there were touches of snow sitting by the site of the road. As you reach the end of this long ramp, the road will bear right and you’ll start on another long ramp, but, this time, it’s punctuated by a cattle grid. And, like all cattle grids, it will rob you of absolutely all of your momentum.
As soon as you cross the cattle grid, it’s like you’ve moved to a different country. The browns of open moorland appear, resplendently, out in front of you and you can feel the wind begin to pick up ever so slightly. It also seems to be a very definite point of temperature inversion – the touches of snow by the side of the road before the grid become definite signs of proper drifts above it. As you continue to climb, the feeling of being on your own in the middle of nowhere increases and, whilst there are livestock in the area, I haven’t seen any on my ascents of Sleight’s Moor. Maybe it’s the wind: it keeps on increasing as you get closer to the summit, mainly because, without knowing it, you’re now high enough that there’s very little to stop it!
Continue up here for the thick end of another half-mile and the gradient will really have slackened off – you are, essentially, at the top now: it’s just a matter of working out where the gradient stops going up and starts to head back down again. It is, very much, one of those classic climbs where the top is not well defined. I kept riding to the junction at the end of the road as this made a good stopping point, but I’d be pushed to say exactly where the summit was as I was riding up!
Once you do reach the top, if the weather is conducive, I’d recommend taking a little time to look around you: it’s stunning up there on a nice day. Sit up, relax and breathe deeply in the knowledge that you’ve done a Good Job to reach the summit!
If there are any other road climbs you’d like me to take on, the more ridiculous the better, then please send me a message on my FaceBook page https://www.facebook.com/wheelygoodcycling/ or email me on wheelygoodmail@gmail.com and let me know…
