• Ranmoor Gennel
• Length: 0.1 miles
• Avg gradient: 14%
• Peak gradient: Somewhere between 33-47%!
• Difficulty: 6/5
• Likelihood of encountering unpleasant motor-vehicles: 0/5
• Elevation gain: 83ft
• Strava It won’t let me make one as it’s too short.

Possibly impossible?

Disclosure: I have never managed to climb this short hill to the end but I’m sure someone, somewhere can.

It’s probably a bit legally grey to cycle up here as, although it’s not actually signposted as a footpath, no reasonable cyclist would take their bike up here and I congratulate you if you even make it to the lamppost.

First of all, unless you can bunny hop three large steps into a metre-wide gennel, you’re starting from a standing stop on what RideWighGPS tells me is a 9% incline. Add to that, the surface is uneven cobbles and probably covered in leaves. It’s not an easy start. I found it hard enough to even begin but there is a handrail to help if you’re wobbling a bit too much. The path does a get a bit wider further up but your objective here is to get any momentum without hitting the sides.

If you manage to get going, well done, now just try not to ride into any stinging nettles, scrape a leg on the wall or skid on leaves, all while fighting with the very uneven surface that is slowly increasing, breaking double figures about 30 yards in. Travel about the same distance again you’ll see the lamppost where the path bends to the right, coinciding with the gradient reaching around 20%.

If that was the end, it would be an interesting little challenge (not to mention the potential hazard of someone walking down the path) but the final run to the end of the gennel is ridiculous. GPS recordings are wonky here because of all the tree cover but my GPS recordings puts it somewhere between 35-47%. 47% seems like an exaggeration but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is at least 40%. That’s approaching 1:1.

If you make it out of here, you are a cycle climb master.