North Hill is well known to cyclists in the area, but, to be honest, it was one climb I had always managed to avoid. I’d ridden the road before, but my routes had somehow always been planned to take me down the hill rather than up it.
Fancying a longer ride, I decided to reverse a route I’d ridden several times before and finally tackle North Hill from the other direction. With around 70 miles planned, an early start seemed sensible, with a coffee and food stop at Paper Mill Lock along the way. There was just one slight problem with that plan: the café sits conveniently — or perhaps inconveniently — at the start of the North Hill climb. I’d need to make sure the coffee and cake didn’t get the better of me.
North Hill itself is about 1.7 km long, gaining around 87 metres at an average gradient of roughly 5%. The steepest sections reach about 10.7%, including a 100-metre stretch averaging around 9.3%. It’s not an Alpine pass, but it’s certainly enough to remind the legs that this wasn’t going to be an entirely flat tour of Essex.
And North Hill wasn’t the only climbing on the route. The Main Road climb provided another opportunity to point the bike uphill, making this familiar route feel rather different when ridden the other way around.