the hard yard?

In case you hadn’t guessed, the nature of the cycling that I do in and around Penrith is vastly different to the cycling I do in Hong Kong. For a start, I don’t go off-road while I’m here, mainly because I’m riding a hybrid road bike rather than a mountain bike. However, I was walking up Gloucester Yard one day last week when it occurred to me that it would be quite a challenge to ride up it on a bike. There’s just one snag though: there are several businesses in the yard, including a hairdressing salon, a tattoo parlour and a dentist’s surgery, so there is likely to be some foot traffic.

I solved that problem by attempting the climb early on a Sunday morning, when all the businesses would be closed, and it seems to me that the majority of locals are unaware that there is a through route, so all the pedestrians that you might encounter are there to visit one of the businesses.

Gloucester Yard connects the open space of Great Dockray and West Lane, where it runs parallel to Castlegate, the route of choice for most people walking from the town centre to the railway station. The yard is a better—i.e., quieter—option than the street, and this is the entrance:

There is a car park to the left of the white building with the sandstone ‘trim’, but otherwise there is no through road that way. The yard continues to the right:

Although it seemed steep when I was walking up the hill, it certainly didn’t feel like it on my bike, although that may be just because it doesn’t last long enough:

The gradient slowly levels off towards the top, where I suspect the yard is accessed occasionally by motor vehicles:

I was right about one thing: there is no foot traffic on a Sunday morning. But I was wrong about another: this hill is much easier than I expected, and because it doesn’t lead anywhere on a bike—you have to lose all the height you’ve just gained to continue—I won’t be doing it again. It would be more interesting, and more challenging, if the steep section of the yard was a third the width, but as it is, Gloucester Yard does not compare with the spiral ramp, swiss roll, or any of the other difficult obstacles that I encounter when cycling through squatter areas in Hong Kong.