{"id":567,"date":"2020-05-27T14:13:53","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T13:13:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/?p=567"},"modified":"2020-05-27T14:13:59","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T13:13:59","slug":"leadpipe-hill-simon-warren-cycling-climbs-of-the-north-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/?p=567","title":{"rendered":"Leadpipe Hill &#8211; Simon Warren Cycling Climbs of the North East"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul><li>SW Rating: 5\/10<\/li><li>Wheelygood Rating: Easy<\/li><li>Length: 1.56 miles<\/li><li>Avg. gradient: 6%<\/li><li>Strava Segment: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/segments\/19601742\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.strava.com\/segments\/19601742<\/a><\/li><li>Parking: Not a lot towards the bottom, but there is a car park at the very top\u2026<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width:100%;height:600px;\" src=\"https:\/\/veloviewer.com\/segments\/19601742\/embed2?units=i\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>Tucked away in South Northumberland, not far from <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slaleyhallhotel.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Slaley Hall<\/a> lies a one-way road which isn&#8217;t known by huge numbers of people. Yes, the locals know, as do the 4&#215;4 and motorbike scrambling community &#8211; much to the chagrin of the locals, because the woods in which this is set are not open to motorised transport beyond a certain point. So, if you&#8217;re buzzed by someone on a scrambler, or a vehicle towing a motorbike on the back, then you might want to let the Police know their details, because, at the time of writing, this isn&#8217;t legal here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyhoo, the climb. Like many things, it begins at the beginning &#8211; except that this isn&#8217;t where you&#8217;d expect it to be from a map, at least if, like me, you&#8217;re from around these parts(ish). The first time I rode to the top of Leadpipe hill, I came in on the road at the small, oblique, crossroads and then discovered, to slight irritation, that I&#8217;d missed the bottom section of the official Simon Warren segment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That said, you might be slightly disappointed with the start to the climb &#8211; there&#8217;s one small ramp and then, erm, some pretty-much-flat to said crossroads. It&#8217;s a haul when the wind is against you (most of the time), but, in terms of hill climbing it&#8217;s a bit of a nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t get much better once you&#8217;re past the crossroads, either. The relative flatness continues, skirting the edge of the woodlands. Make the most of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the road winds around a couple of bends, it will straighten out \u2026 and look a bit weird. It looks like the bottom of the Halo object from, well, Halo: Combat Evolved. It&#8217;s an optical illusion caused by the proximity of the trees and the upcoming increase in gradient &#8211; the road really does ramp up like that, and it&#8217;s in your future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The slope increase, then increases a bit more. And, yes, a bit more. It keeps doing this until it becomes steep and it sneaks up on you. At the bottom you&#8217;re motoring along, but all the speed will feel like it&#8217;s been sucked out of your system and it&#8217;s only if you have the slope displayed on a cycle computer (or you take the risk and look behind you) that you can see why that&#8217;s happened. The steep part bobs into the teens and remains there for a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If, like most of us, you&#8217;ve kept your head down at this point then you will have missed the next changeover. The road goes from &#8216;steep&#8217; to &#8216;very steep&#8217;, i.e. into the 20% range for the last section of the Big Ramp. With there being a public car park at the end of the tarmac section, please beware cars and other traffic coming down the hill at this point, because they&#8217;ll not be hanging about and won&#8217;t have a lot of time to see you over the brow. best keep somewhere near the side so you&#8217;ve got an escape route!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just keep pushing through &#8211; once you&#8217;re over this hump, the very hard work is done. Oh, it still keeps climbing, but it&#8217;s much more manageable now, although it does drag on for longer than you&#8217;d like. You&#8217;ll also find plenty of the local gravel on the road here along with a good sprinkling of branches, leaves and thorns, all of which are hard to spot as the light up here is blocked quite significantly from the tree cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After about 1\/3 of a mile of dragging on, the tarmac will finish and you&#8217;ll ride into a bit of a clearing. This is the car park and it marks the top of the Simon Warren climb. It is possible to ride a bunch of the paths nearby &#8211; they are for cyclists and walkers (and, probably horse riders, although I&#8217;d recommend checking that). According to a bunch of the mapping websites, you can go straight on and, eventually, you&#8217;ll drop down into the North side of Blanchland. I rode about 100m along the first part of the track, simply because it continues uphill and I wanted to be able to say that I&#8217;d reached the summit<sup id=\"rf1-567\"><a href=\"#fn1-567\" title=\"Yes, I am actually that sad\u2026\" rel=\"footnote\">1<\/a><\/sup> and, whilst this part was ridable on a road bike, it&#8217;s not ideal terrain and I&#8217;m not sure I can recommend taking one further along the track. Perhaps one day, but, until then, I can&#8217;t say anything about the condition, or route, of the trail from there\u2026.good hunting, if you try it. And let me know how you got on!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since you&#8217;re here at the top, take a deep breath, turn around and head right back where you came from &#8211; this is a no through route, at least as far as the tarmac goes. Great job on getting to the top!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If there are any other road climbs you&#8217;d like me to take on, the more ridiculous the better, then please send me a message on my FaceBook page <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wheelygoodcycling\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wheelygoodcycling\/<\/a> or email me on <a href=\"mailto:wheelygoodmail@gmail.com\">wheelygoodmail@gmail.com<\/a> and let me know\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube\"><div class=\"lyte-wrapper\" title=\"Leadpipe Hill - Simon Warren Cycling Climbs of the North East\" style=\"width:640px;max-width:100%;margin:5px auto;\"><div class=\"lyMe hidef\" id=\"WYL_6R0k4gGKPCs\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><div><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/6R0k4gGKPCs\/maxresdefault.jpg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"embedURL\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6R0k4gGKPCs\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT12M21S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2020-03-15T17:37:27Z\" \/><\/div><div id=\"lyte_6R0k4gGKPCs\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/6R0k4gGKPCs\/maxresdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\" itemprop=\"name\">Leadpipe Hill - Simon Warren Cycling Climbs of the North East<\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/6R0k4gGKPCs\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/6R0k4gGKPCs\/0.jpg?resize=640%2C340&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Leadpipe Hill - Simon Warren Cycling Climbs of the North East\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"Up into the forest around Slaley - more information here: https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/ Strava Segment: https:\/\/www.strava.com\/segments\/19601742 SW Rating: 5\/10 Wheelygood Rating: Easy Length: 1.56 miles Avg. gradient: 6%\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:640px;margin:5px auto;\"><\/div><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure><div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/?p=567\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground:  !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 100% !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  <hr class=\"footnotes\"><ol class=\"footnotes\" style=\"list-style-type:decimal\"><li id=\"fn1-567\"><p >Yes, I am actually that sad\u2026&nbsp;<a href=\"#rf1-567\" class=\"backlink\" title=\"Return to footnote 1.\">&#8617;<\/a><\/p><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you go up to the woods today&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,9],"tags":[2,7,6,5],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wheelygood.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Leadpipe-Hill.png?fit=758%2C299&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":570,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions\/570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}