4 of the South East's Greatest Cycling Climbs in 1 day

I recently found this Google Maps Site showing all the climbs from Books 1 and 2 of the 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs in the UK:

They are all nicely identified and you can zoom and and see where they are. When I saw this a few months ago I had not realised how many of the climbs in the South East were relatively close to my parents house in Dartford. I am travelling to Dartford reasonably often at the moment and take my bike most times. Over the Bank Holiday weekend we'd been at Exeter initially, but I had planned a route to take on some of the hills in cycling distance from Dartford. I ended up with this route:

This was about 64 miles and I estimated around 4hrs ride time at 16mph.

The plan was to do White Lane (#16), then Chalkpit Lane (#117), then Toys Hill (#20) and finally York's Hill (#15).

I started off at about 7.15 on the Bank Holiday morning and followed a route that I have done a few times now, off past Eynsford and then past Lullingstone and south westwards. I joined the Pilgrims Way and rode towards Westerham which was basically the foot of what I thought was White Lane.

Climb #16 - White Lane
I made a mistake and did not look at the map properly. I happily ground up what I thought was White Lane. The confusion was it was also referred to Titsey Hill and this is what I rode up instead of White Lane (although I did not realise this until I got back and uploaded the ride to Strava). It was classed as a Strava Cat 4. The longest segment was 2 miles, 5% average gradient and 518ft of climbing. My time was 11:16 and I was 207th out of 964. I was pretty pleased with this. I then rode along The Ridge and past the top of Chalkpit Lane in order to loop round a few miles further along to get to the bottom of Chalkpit Lane.

Climb #117 - Chalkpit Lane

A much smaller road that Titsey Hill, and I only saw 2 cars during the ascent, both coming down nearer the top. There was a gentle (easy) climb under the motorway and then it gently got steeper as it climbed past the 2 entrances to the quarry. It kept getting steeper and then curved round to the right where it remained at around 16% (according to my Garmin) to the top. It was very hard and I needed the 34-28 gearing and took it steady all the way up. There are several Strava segments on the climb -the most similar segment on Strava seems to be "Passo della Chalkpit" - 1 mile long, 430ft of ascent and 8% average. My time was 8:03 - this compares vert favourably to the suggested time of 8 minutes. I came 354th out of 981. Not too shabby.


The climb was tough and is 7/10 in the book.

Climb #20 - Toys Hill

There was then a transition ride of about 10 miles to get to the bottom of Toys Hill. To be honest I had not realised I was actually on the climb until about 500yards or so as I'd turned off the road with a sign pointing to Toys Hill (I assume now that this was the village). One of the signs that I might be on the climb was that there were 2 other cyclists in front of me and a couple coming down. I caught the cyclist ahead of me but did not have enough in the tank to risk a pass as I knew I'd never pull away - and he had a triple so had a much better choice of gears (and I was again in the 34-28). I plodded away and after what seemed like an eternity I reached what seemed to be the top at the crossroads, only to see a few yards further on the climb continuing - it turns out there was still about 0.3-0.4 miles to the top. It was a really hard climb. The sgement is hereand the data is 1.6 miles long, 595ft of ascent at 7% average. My time was 10:50 and I came 574 of 1879, so comfortably in the top 1/3rd (my general aspiration). The books target time is 8 minutes but I couldn't see me getting close to that, or not after 40 miles. The climb was tough and is 7/10 in the book.

Climb #15 - York's Hill

I got a bit confused (or my Garmin did) riding from Toys Hill to Yorks Hill. I got to the top of Ide Hill but each way I went I seemed to be off course. In the end  it seemed to sort out self out and after descending (what I now know is) Ide Hill I turned left onto some very quiet roads. I did not really quite know where I was (the trouble with being somewhere you don't know, with only a line to follow on an electronic device (with a very small area of map) and not having a printed map. The Garmin seemed happy enough for another mile or so, and soon I Was climbing. It was fairly gentle at first buts started getting quite steep - at least steep enough for me to start hoping that this was actually York Hill. After a bit further I saw a tiny handmade sign saying something like Farm, Yorks Hill so was slightly relieved. However the hill was getting steeper and steeper. The Garmin had been showing 16-18% for some time and then it reached 20 an 21%. At this point I was really feeling the gradient as was weaving a bit across the road. Fortunately this gradient lasted only 100 yards or so before it reached the top. This climb (after the other 3) was really hard. The segment is here. The data is 0.4 miles long, 268ft of ascent at an average 13%. My time was 4:20 and I was 687 of 1796 - not as good as hoped but I'd done over 45 miles by that point and a fair amount of climbing as well, so it was OK. my 4:20 compares with a 3 minute typical time in the book. I am OK with being a lot slower for this as Toys Hill was so tough a few miles earlier.  The climb was tough and is 6/10 in the book

Overview
A fantastic route. 64 miles and 5000ft of climbing so pretty tough, but not quite at the magic 100ft/mile. A lot of descending as well and some of the roads were narrow, had a poor surface and the pile of debris in the middle so I used a lot of brake pad on the ride as well. Some minor issues with the Garmin routing again which is irritating. Will definitely do again, and hopefully get White Lane in (only a minor detour) and, knowing the route I'll be able to pace myself better and push a bit harder on the climbs. The only poor part was a couple of miles on the A25 - this was OK at 8am on a Sunday but I'd be nervous about busier times.

There are some more hills in the area to do as well (The Wall is one) so another route beckons.

The final route is here.