Who doesn’t love a switchback, a hairpin bend, a proper 180° turn? It’s what we cyclists dream of, swinging back and forth through shoelaces draped across an Alpine hillside.
As soon as you hit them, you’re transported to scenes you’ve watched in the Grand Tours, and you imagine climbing in the tyre tracks of legends, rapidly ascending under a blazing sun.
These marvels of engineering are commonplace in the mountains of Europe; our continental cousins are blessed with countless kilometres of bends rising to snowcapped peaks.
Unfortunately, our small island is rather a hairpin desert, so when Luke Edinburgh from the website Switchback Saturdays contacted me suggesting I plot a switchback route in the UK, my instinct was to laugh.
“A ride in Britain, packed with hairpin bends? That’s not happening," I replied. "I’m not saying we have none, there are some, but they are very few and far between.”
Visiting Switchback Saturdays online you will see routes in places such as Taiwan, Asturias, the Alps and the Pyrenees, but the British Isles have far fewer mountain roads – it just can’t be done.
No sooner had I admitted defeat, however, than I began to ponder the British hairpins that I’d ridden.
The three tight corners at the top of Bealach-na-Bà in the Scottish Highlands, the glorious sweeping bend towards the top of Black Mountain in South Wales, and the brace of hairpins that adorn Box Hill in the North Downs. Zig Zag Hill, the Porlock toll road… the list went on.
These climbs did fit the criteria – but with the not-insubstantial snag that they were all many miles away from each other.
You see, the other stipulation of the challenge was to cap each ride at a maximum 100km, which meant the Bealach na Bà-Box Hill route was out.
Where could I find enough switchbacks in a small enough geographical area to fulfil the brief? The Peak District, my own stomping ground, was as good a place to try as any.
Mind your manners
As soon as I’d focused my attention on a more concise area, my mind went into overdrive.
Images of hairpin bends surfaced from deep in my memory. Rowsley Bar, that corner past the golf course in Manners Wood, Larkstone Lane and, the best of the lot, Cressbrook.
I wasn’t going to match a ride out of the Maurienne Valley in the French Alps, but I was now confident of sticking together a half-decent interpretation of the brief.
After much tweaking, I managed to squeeze a grand total of 12 switchbacks into 100 kilometres and it didn’t involve any dead turns, which is one of my golden rules of route plotting.
The Switchback Saturday rides aren’t sportives; there is no entry fee, no registration, no arrows, and there doesn’t have to be a headquarters.
To make the events more sociable they tend to start and finish at a local cycling cafe, so I picked the excellent Summat in the heart of Bakewell as our base.
I also advertised the ride in my Strava club and, filling out the form, I selected ‘Casual No Drop’ to describe the pace.
Saturday morning rolled round and, somewhat amazingly, after a stinker of a winter, we were blessed with clear blue skies.
At around 5°C, it was certainly chilly and, although dry, the roads would still be dirty and wet.
Rolling out from Summat, which you will find tucked away in Horsecroft Court, we were a compact group of 11, one rider on their winter bike strapped with mudguards and the rest on fancy carbon machines with nice deep-section wheels.
The first glance at the kit and bikes on display gave me an idea of what pace we’d be riding at – and it would be brisk.
There is zero chance to warm up on this route, especially for anyone who has driven to the start, because the ride heads for its first climb and first hairpin right away, up out of Bakewell and through Manners Wood.
The pace was keen on the front, with young Leo West forcing us to breathe harder. Rounding that first hairpin, a wickedly steep right-hander, our group had already splintered, so it was time to knock it off a little.
To drop, or not to drop
Regarding the ‘no drop’ policy, there are different levels of no drop.
The highest level is ‘leave no one behind under any circumstances’. This is ultra inclusive but can lead to a very long day – and a very cold day at this time of year for those waiting.
From there it increases in varying degrees. If a rider throws their hand in the air and says ‘I know the roads, don’t wait for me,’ they can be left; this is an ‘agreed drop’.
The level we settled upon was to cater for riders who were just off the pace on the climbs yet really wanted to take part, so past the top of each climb there would be a brief wait, a regrouping and then we would press on.
Unfortunately, right after the first climb we had our first, “I’m fine, I know the roads, I’ll make my own way.” So then we were 10.
The next climb was the dreaded Rowsley Bar. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet because I assumed it went without saying, but the switchbacks had to be on climbs.
That is why they exist: to negate the impact of the gradient and enable us to negotiate slopes that would otherwise prove impossible. Rowsley Bar is maybe the most contested rating in my book, 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs.
The rating of 6 out of 10 has seen me bombarded with criticism ever since. In truth, it’s clearly an 8. We again rode a brisk pace, up through its vicious brace of hairpins and then on to the eventual summit.
Up front, Leo and I were not talking because of the effort, but the pair of riders behind us, Lee and Harriet, were chatting away – making it seem oh so easy.
We regrouped at the top, rocketed down the first of the day’s many precipitous descents and, looping back to the base of Rowsley, headed onto Congreave.
I love this climb. It’s nasty from the start – it’s narrow, and thrashes back and forth with a relentless frequency, although not all the bends can be technically classed as switchbacks.
Through Stanton in Peak and our next destination is Alport and its dramatic but actually quite tame hairpin number 6, which leads you out of the village and into almost 7km of constant climbing.
There isn’t another switchback for 30km now but the route is far from mundane, with some beautiful lanes and even a lethal slippery ford in the village of Butterton.
Up next is my favourite climb of the ride, the exquisite Larkstone Lane. On approach from the south side of the Manifold Valley, you can see almost the whole length of the road as it zig-zags up the hillside.
From this viewpoint, it looks like the Col du Tourmalet, drawing a few gasps and groans from the group.
In reality, it’s not quite the ordeal it appears, but still a solid test, which starts with some tasty 20 per cent slopes hidden in the trees before breaking clear to twist out of the deep valley, trapped between high stone walls.
Today we didn’t go to the true summit of the climb but took a left turn halfway up, after completing corners 7 and 8.
Switch up
By now, our group was down to just seven. Harriet had been forced to return home with a broken right lever, which was a relief for the rest of us because she was far too strong, while a couple more had requested to be left to suffer alone.
However, on our way towards Crowdicote, one rider, who we believed to have left some time ago, suddenly reappeared.
Knowing the roads, and knowing he was struggling a little on the climbs, he made the genius call of taking a shortcut through one of the Peak’s abandoned rail tunnels, snipping a huge chunk off the route and joining back up with us.
We were now up to eight riders again and heading for the often busy, but always sublime, bends (9 and 10) on the climb out of the village of Crowdicote.
Prior to this climb, we agreed that, once over the top, we’d split into two groups to cut down wait times, so we said our farewells and then one by one dragged our now tiring legs up this tough road.
There were now only two hairpins left, and consequently two nasty climbs.
Next in our way was the tiny yet very steep bend out of Lathkill Dale (number 11) and then, to finish with, the cherry on the cake, the most majestic of all Peak District switchbacks – the glorious bend up the back road into Cressbrook.
Unfortunately, immediately prior to the ramp-up out of Lathkill Dale, another mechanical struck.
Lee’s electric gears went into crash mode and he was stuck in a wholly inappropriate ratio, far too big for the impending 20 per cent and that was it. Sam stayed with him, so it left only Leo and I to ride Cressbrook together.
When they designed the switchback, this must have been cast from the original mould.
It is the most immaculate rendering of the concept one could imagine, from the tightness of the apex to the way the road flows in and out, to the perfectly engineered pitch of the gradient. What a way to finish the challenge, barring the return to Bakewell.
The moral of the story is to never accept defeat until you have explored every possibility for victory.
The challenge of plotting a switchback-filled route in the UK seemed the stuff of fantasy at first, but with some local knowledge and a fun evening of plotting, fantasy turned to reality.
So maybe, if you search hard enough, you’ll find some switchbacks where you live and you could create your own Switchback Saturday route in your back yard.
Local Knowledge
Switchback Saturdays is a project created by Luke Edinburgh and a global network of cyclists who are part of Cycling Spots.
Passionate about their region, the collective offer local insights and routes for visitors.
There are 52 Switchback Saturday rides in 2024, all on the website. All routes are approximately 100km long and, of course, feature as many switchbacks as possible.
Distance: 104km
Elevation: 2,110m
Download the full route: komoot
Getting there: In the south of the Peak District, the nearest train stations to Bakewell are in Matlock, Chesterfield and Buxton, with regular bus services to the town.
Where to stay: Tourist hub Bakewell, the start and end of the ride, is awash with options, including the H Boutique Hotel, Ashford Arms and The Rutland Arms Hotel.
Where to eat: Bakewell’s Summat is a popular hub for cycling and running clubs on the hunt for a much-needed dose of coffee, with 9am rides on Saturdays.
Bike shops: Peakland Cycles offers servicing by Cytech-accredited mechanics, while Trek’s first store in the National Park offers bike hire as well as servicing.
