100 Climbs Route: Day 13, Lancaster to Hawes

In August 2018, three Cycling UK members - Dominic Millar, Graham Salisbury and James Findlater – cycled a 3,300-mile, 29-day route around Britain to take on all 100 hills featured in Simon Warren’s book ‘100 Greatest Cycling Climbs’. This route plots day 13 of the journey, 103 miles from Lancaster to Hawes, taking in the climbs of Jubilee Tower, Cross of Greet, Langcliffe Scar, Malham Cove, Park Rash and Garsdale Head.

After leaving Lancaster - and almost instantly taking on the climb of Jubilee Tower - a day spent largely among woodland lies ahead. Retrace the route from yesterday, deep into the Forest of Bowland as far as Dunsop Bridge. Here turn eastwards and head through Newton-in-Bowland and Slaidburn to arrive at the second challenge of the day: Cross of Greet.

This narrow road is a good climb from either direction, but our route from Slaidburn is the longest ascent with a series of steps taking you to the summit.

Keep heading north until just before Bentham where you’ll turn right towards Settle and Giggleswick. You won’t be laughing soon, though. Straight after Giggleswick comes Langcliffe and the twisting, turning climb of Langcliffe Scar.

All the climbing has been done en route so far today, but just before reaching Malham Tarn it’s time to take a detour south to Malham and retrace your tracks up the beautiful limestone-walled climb of Malham Cove.

Then it's back to Malham Tarn and onwards to Kettlewell, where you’ll branch off for another excursion, this time to climb Park Rash – a truly awesome challenge that Simon Warren says: “resembles a tarmac ski slope”.

Head back down to Kettlewell, then north-east, descending Fleet Moss (which will be climbed tomorrow, so make notes), and through Hawes. There’s just time for one last diversion to Garsdale Head, where the mixed bag of road surfaces is almost as challenging as the fight against gravity.

Return to Hawes and you’re done for the day.