{"id":611,"date":"2020-05-27T16:54:53","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T15:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/?p=611"},"modified":"2020-05-27T16:54:58","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T15:54:58","slug":"winters-gibbet-simon-warren-61","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/?p=611","title":{"rendered":"Winter&#8217;s Gibbet &#8211; Simon Warren #61"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul><li>S\/W Rating: 5\/10<\/li><li>Wheelygood Rating: Easy<\/li><li>Length: 2.08 miles<\/li><li>Avg. gradient: 5%<\/li><li>Category: 4<\/li><li>Strava Segment: <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/segments\/6677593\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.strava.com\/segments\/6677593<\/a><\/li><li>Route: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.plotaroute.com\/route\/1142106\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.plotaroute.com\/route\/1142106<\/a><\/li><li>Parking: There is space to park around the village green in Elsdon<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width:100%;height:600px;\" src=\"https:\/\/veloviewer.com\/segments\/6677593\/embed2?units=i\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>Scene of the 2004 <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/British_National_Hill_Climb_Championships\" target=\"_blank\">National Hillclimb Championships<\/a>, I think it&#8217;s fair to day that Winter&#8217;s Gibbet is one of the better known climbs in the North East &#8211; so much so that it&#8217;s normally referred to by the simpler form of just &#8216;The Gibbet&#8217;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a climb of Many Parts &#8211; there&#8217;s a steep lower section, a mid-range middle section and a shallow, flowing, upper which means it&#8217;s a blend of all types of climb, although not in sufficient volume to make it particularly hard. I should mention here, though, that, for whatever reason, I don&#8217;t particularly enjoy riding up the Gibbet. No idea why &#8211; there&#8217;s nothing here I haven&#8217;t done in spades elsewhere, but, somehow, it just doesn&#8217;t feel quite right, or natural to me. It&#8217;s a very personal feeling &#8211; quite a few of the Club (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tynevags.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tyneside Vagabonds CC<\/a>) regard it with far more fondness than I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As is normal with these things, we begin at the bottom. In this case, it&#8217;s in the village of Elsdon, deep into North Northumberland. Once clear of the village, you&#8217;ll cross over a small bridge and catch your first glimpse of the climb. Another hundred metres later and you&#8217;ll turn right around a farm and be confronted with the steepest ramp of the whole caboodle. It&#8217;s into the 20% range and feels like a wall, but you&#8217;ll get there. And, then, after a false flat, it hits you again with another steep ramp, although this one is noticeably shorter. So far, so steep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You then get some recovery<sup id=\"rf1-611\"><a href=\"#fn1-611\" title=\"Unless, of course, you&#8217;re on a Club Run, or a Hillclimb, in which case you&#8217;ll get &lt;em&gt;no rest whatsoever&lt;\/em&gt;, because the general mood up here is to give it a punt\u2026\" rel=\"footnote\">1<\/a><\/sup> before the road sweeps left, and up into a long, drawn out ramp. Don&#8217;t be fooled by the right hander and the flatter looking bit around the corner &#8211; it&#8217;s no easier than the section you&#8217;re on now. Yes, it&#8217;s slightly lesser in terms of gradient, but it is <em>always<\/em> that little bit more into the wind. And it&#8217;s this section which does for me &#8211; every time. It&#8217;s not steep, nor long, nor that hard, but it sucks the life out of my legs. It&#8217;s as much as I can do to just keep rolling the pedals around until I reach the next corner, at which point the road gets steeper, bends again and then relents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You&#8217;re now on the upper slopes, but don&#8217;t think you can blaze a trail just yet. Yes, you&#8217;re now getting some downhill action, usually with the wind between your buttocks, but that ramp dead ahead is steeper than it looks. If you&#8217;re a National level racer, then you can, no doubt, engage the warp engines on this, but, for the rest of us mortals, there&#8217;s a certain amount of winching to be done on this 10% pull. And, no, it&#8217;s exactly as much fun as it sounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Crest the hill and <em>now<\/em> you&#8217;re into the steadier territory. Build up some momentum, and a decent rhythm and you&#8217;ll be well away now &#8211; assuming you&#8217;ve got anything left in your legs. It takes a little while, but the top does, eventually, start to feel like it&#8217;s getting that little bit closer. I&#8217;m not sure whether it&#8217;s a help, or hindrance, that you can see the actual gibbet at the top of the climb, although it is a handy marker point for where your effort will conclude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then, as if by magic, following one last shallow ramp, you&#8217;ll reach the corner which marks the summit. If you&#8217;re feeling OK, then crack on and enjoy the tailwind all the way to the end of the road &#8211; but please be aware that, at the time of writing, the road surface heading East was <em>appalling<\/em> \u2026 and then some. If you&#8217;re not feeling OK, then there&#8217;s a handy lay-by on the left in which you can curl up into a tiny ball until the dizziness goes away\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chapeau &#8211; you&#8217;ve just made it to the top of one of the premier climbs of Northumberland!<\/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=\"Winter&amp;#039;s Gibbet - Simon Warren #61\" style=\"width:640px;max-width:100%;margin:5px auto;\"><div class=\"lyMe hidef\" id=\"WYL_EiZAB1Qj8IU\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><div><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/EiZAB1Qj8IU\/maxresdefault.jpg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"embedURL\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EiZAB1Qj8IU\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT14M22S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2020-02-29T08:09:47Z\" \/><\/div><div id=\"lyte_EiZAB1Qj8IU\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/EiZAB1Qj8IU\/maxresdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\" itemprop=\"name\">Winter&#039;s Gibbet - Simon Warren #61<\/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\/EiZAB1Qj8IU\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/EiZAB1Qj8IU\/0.jpg?resize=640%2C340&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Winter&amp;#039;s Gibbet - Simon Warren #61\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"Escape from Elsdon - more information here: https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/ Strava Segment: https:\/\/www.strava.com\/segments\/6677593 Route: https:\/\/www.plotaroute.com\/route\/1142106 S\/W Rating: 5\/10 Wheelygood Rating: Easy Length: 2.08 miles Avg. gradient: 5% Category: 4\"><\/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=611\"\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=\"fn1-611\"><p >Unless, of course, you&#8217;re on a Club Run, or a Hillclimb, in which case you&#8217;ll get <em>no rest whatsoever<\/em>, because the general mood up here is to give it a punt\u2026&nbsp;<a href=\"#rf1-611\" class=\"backlink\" title=\"Return to footnote 1.\">&#8617;<\/a><\/p><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Escape from Elsdon&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":613,"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":[3,2,7,25,6,5],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wheelygood.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Winters-Gibbet.png?fit=761%2C299&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611"}],"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=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelygood.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}