White Horse Bank

As winter drew in and 1857 began to change to 1858, a village local, Thomas Taylor, concocted a plan to bring some tourism and much-needed money to his local Parish. The idea: cut a large Horse shaped hole into the adjoining hillside. As you do.

In 2020 however, the still visible equine figure is not the reason that many a hardened Yorkshire cyclist flocks to the small village. Similarly, it is not the reason the local bike shop and café are flourishing. The mile of sheer hell leading to the café oddly is.

The first thing you notice as you leave the picturesque, typically Yorkshire village behind is Taylor's scheme worked. The unmarked road heading north towards the climb does feel unusually busy even for a sunny summer’s afternoon. A road which is thankfully wide enough for car and bike to cohabit peacefully, without the latter having to stop to let the former through or receive a gob full and a precariously close pass. As we pass the last of the houses the tarmac lazily drapes out into the green countryside next to a small beck. As if to complete the Yorkshire welcome, we receive a scornful, judging look from a presumed local, silently asking ‘What are you doing here bringing tourism to our touristic village?’

As we take a sharp left, another more pressing realisation becomes apparent. This is going to be steep. The road dives under a canopy of trees and then rears up to past the gradient I feel comfortable maintaining for any prolonged length of time. Agonisingly, it then continues to rise past the point where I am convinced that I can keep moving the bike forward. Looking down at my Garmin I see it read the eyewatering number of 25%. Exactly 3 meters later, “biddel ip”, it auto pauses.

The road mercilessly continues to snake up the wooded hillside, while my paperboy-esque zig zag becomes comically slow, allowing my 39x28 gear ratio to let me spin at a perceived cadence of around 6.5 revolutions per minute. Less of a Chris Froome style frantic washing machine, more of a dried-up stream’s seized rusty water wheel.

After the climbs third kink, a nasty right-hander had me hugging the dirt on the left for any form of reprieve, the gradient slackens off. I see now that this easing still had me climbing in the low teens, but on the perceived effort, it felt downhill. One of the few sections where it is possible to knock it down a couple of cogs at the back to press on, or in my case take a second to enjoy the dappling sunlight through the forested surrounds while trying to ignore the incessant thudding of my feverish pulse echoing around my skull.

All too soon the hard work begins again, and we are well back into the mid-teen territory for the longest of the steep drags the climb has to offer. Rounding another right-hander and the beautiful flatness of the White Horse car park seems to almost drag you in while affording you the only glance of the chalk mare on the climb – disappointingly slightly worse for wear up close. But your perseverance to continue is soon repaid by a magnificent single figure gradient.

We are now past the halfway mark and all the steepest slopes are behind us. That is not to say the remaining six hundred meters on the potholed, draggy road surface is easy, but as sunlight pools in through the trees, a sudden appreciation of the road’s beauty filters in alongside. Finally, the internal throbbing cacophony starts to decrescendo.

A couple more testing corners to finish and the blessed glider sign appears. One which marks the end to the climbing and the road opens out into a green grass field. Transporting me back from the Pyrenean slopes in my mind’s eye to an airstrip in North Yorkshire.

Nevertheless, the stallion has been tamed and that calls for one thing. Coffee. And probably some Yorkshire Parkin to boot.