The first 50 meters are at a quad busting 28% - yikes!An unrelated but great treat to this climb is Harlech Castle which can be accessed pretty easily from the finish. It’s made tougher by the fact that you will always have a crosswind when you’re out on the moors.”This opening stretch of ‘toughest road’ is made all the harder by the fact I’ve just completed a steep, mile-long climb just to get here, and as the road narrows and leaves Sowerby via Well Head Lane, it simply carries on climbing. Find out which part of the climb will be most challenging. The narrow road was barely wide enough for our car road is so steep that the brakes overheated and began to slightly fail - now that is one steep segment of tarmac!!! Hardknott Pass is a hill pass between Eskdale and the Duddon Valley in the Lake District National Park, Cumbria, England. Civilisation feels a long way off, yet someone has installed a bench here, complete with a dedication plaque. But don’t empty the tank — Melvich is a hamlet. Other climbs within a 50 kilometer straight-line radius of the start of this climb are %RIA50KM.. Access these other climbs by clicking "Routes in Area" on the climb card above right. Not that it really matters when you’re walking at 2mph. So you’re generally losing height, but you’ve got to keep going up little 20 per centers,” Preston had warned me beforehand. Explore the route with streetviews, photos,videos, weather reports as well as browse other routes in the area. Double black arrows abound — in-between admiring the scenery you’ll be breathing through orifices you never knew you had.It’s hard to describe this tiny, unclassified thoroughfare as anything but ‘the road to Lower Diabaig’, seeing as it stops abruptly when you get there and on a regular road bike you’ll have to retrace your tracks to get out.Happily for the cyclist in search of some good old-fashioned suffering, the A836 Bettyhill-Melvich road is anything but pancake flat. But surely once Abbotsbury Hill was out of the way, how hard could it be?After all, it’s pretty much all downhill from here and the surface is pleasantly smooth.As the gentle descent dips into the hamlet of Swyre, the follow-up to Abbotsbury Hill’s haymaker is revealed. It forms part of the West Yorkshire Cycle Route, a 150m (260km) loop that roughly traverses the West Yorkshire boundary. With the rain abating, I stop again, this time on a sharp corner at the head of a picturesque valley. I didn’t even have the excuse of being taken unawares by the gradient.“It’s a massive, fairly steep climb out of Abbotsbury…” CC Weymouth chair Andrew Preston’s words ring repeatedly in my ears as I trudge up a 20 per cent ramp, musing how I’d brought this all on myself.The B3157 Abbotsbury to Bridport road on the Jurassic Coast, combines the perfect ‘Toughest Roads’ ingredients. The tarmac is smooth and although being a B road it can be a little on the busy side, it’s far from intimidating.My westward bearing means the pleasure of a prevailing wind in my face. The steepest road in the UK is not a spectacular pass cutting through a remote mountain range but a suburban street in North Wales. If you love climbing by bike and would like more detailed information on the world’s top bike climbs, join our PJAMM Cycling group and receive our Special Edition Climb Report. The views west along the coast, with the soaring Golden Cap cliff summit in the distance ease the deadness as I hunker down for two further miles of rolling descent into the village of Burton Bradstock and the foot of the last of the day’s climbing.