Tales from the spectacular Horseshoe Pass

THE internet phenomenon Facebook has created a worldwide social network allowing us to keep in touch with friends at the touch of button.

To share experiences and memories and information at the drop of a hat.

The bad news is that YOUR data may be used for political and marketing purposes. So the contents of that meal – or that political statement you “shared” in a post - will have been noted! (That’s enough! Ed)

OK. Quite right. Because I’m off down memory lane. I’m going up the Horseshoe. You coming?

The view towards Llangollen, from the top of the Horseshoe Pass

For the good news is that a Facebook post got me thinking about the Horseshoe Pass in North Wales, my old stomping ground.

It was Tony Bell  who put this idea into my head. Tony is a former pro who posts so much stuff he has surely worn out the keyboard and now transmits  his thoughts directly to the screen.

Almost always funny, by turn wonderfully or horribly rude about people when venting his feelings but always on the button.  And he came up with this great idea.

He wanted to drag us all out of our misery, he said – be it the political situation, the VIRUS or whatever that was getting us down. And he would do this by calling upon us all to cheer the fuck up by recalling happy times, the first big cycling ride we did, the one which got us hooked.

It was a brilliant suggestion. And he kicked it off with a story about  his big moment, of how he and his dad and I think his brothers, all went on a ride into North Wales, returning over the very high plateau of  World’s End, high above the beautiful Vale of Llangollen,  higher even than the nearby Horseshoe Pass.

There was a good response and many others shared their stories.


It inspired me to recall my many rides  into North Wales in the 1960s. For I am Liverpool lad who learned his cycling with the Merseyside Wheelers. I made  second category - my competitive high point.


I rode all over the North West with the club and also solo, before I moved to the South of England.

It’s a lovely spot where I live now, views of the wooded slopes of the North Downs from my front door, all very beautiful. I scan the skies for Red Kites and the occasional buzzard.


But I do miss the wide open spaces of the big mountains up north, the huge rolling expanse of the empty moors, and the wildness of those spaces, where you truly felt you had escaped the crowd.

If time travel was possible, I’d back to that period like a shot, cycling on Sunday mornings down to the boat at Liverpool’s Pier Head.  Across the water to Wirral, off to the North Wales mountains seen in the distance, or into Cheshire and Shropshire.

Or escaping north to the Lancashire Fells, east to the Derbyshire Peak District.


The Horseshoe Pass in North Wales was one of my most popular rides, an 80-mile round trip, taking you up to just under 1,400 feet above sea level.

Approached from Llangollen the Horseshoe presents a four mile climb with an average gradient of 1-12, says the sign at the beginning of the pass proper. And it rises to a max of 1- 8 or 10 at the apex of the “shoe”.  From a distance this steep slope looks impossible to ride as it clings to the mountain wall.
The other approach, from the Llandegla Moors, is less steep, about two miles of climbing.

One particular moment sticks in the mind. I was alone. It was a cold cloudy but dry November Sunday.

At the summit – I’d come up from Llandegla – I stopped to survey the scene. My laboured breathing was the only sound in the eerie heavy silence.  No one about. Not a soul. Bare mountainside.  

Well, there was one thing.

Dead level and a few hundred yards away, a massive, solid looking black cloud hung menacingly. It looked so heavy it might at any minute slowly and silently sink down to crush the roof of the Pondarosa café closed for the winter.  Misty fingers stroked the roof, sought to make a damp embrace.

The rest of this creature hovered above a drop which fell away behind the cafe.  I felt goose bumps.   It was quite scary to be so close, up there, a trespasser in the domain of clouds.


So I was off, taking the spectacular descent on my Harry Quinn Bill Bradley model.

 You would easily touch 50 mph down there, thrilling to the rush of wind in your hair. (An experience denied most cyclists today).

I recall a motorcyclist coming alongside, throttling back and holding up five gloved fingers to me, before accelerating away.

Fifty was quite fast enough on 10-ounce tubs.

If you felt frisky, you would go home the same way, grovel back up the steep side. If you felt really fit, there was always a far crueller route to take out of Llangollen which was equally spectacular.
 This was up the single track narrow twisting ascent to aptly named World’s End, where a  flat plateau stretched as far as the eye could see. And the road becomes a shallow trench cut between banks of purple heather, zig-zagging towards the horizon.
You are as high as the surrounding mountain tops up there, higher than the Horseshoe.

Otherwise you would stay in the valley, leave Llangollen by taking the easier road to Ruabon and Wrexham, skirting the mountains and heading back along the Cheshire border.

I was a junior when I first cycled to Llangollen, via Ruabon. I wanted to save my legs for my first ever ascent!  That first ride up there had me on my knees, especially on that short bit of 1-in-7 past the spectacular ruins of the medieval Valle Crucis Abbey, in the vale below the road and before the pass proper.


A mile or two later, as the road swung to the left, and into the “shoe”, I recall looking up to my right, across the valley, and seeing the sunlight glinting off cars far above.

Blimey. How do I get to get up there?

In fact, on that first occasion I stalled on the 1-in-8 wall at the centre of the horseshoe, the really steep bit. Unclipping my feet from the clips I sat down at a parking space, my chest heaving.

I kicked myself for giving up, for I didn’t know then of the “secret” assistance waiting just around the corner.


For had I struggled another few hundred yards to where the road swung right for the final assault,

I would have been picked up by a strong gust of wind sweeping off the mountain. It was amazing and not uncommon to engage the big chain ring up the final slope.


My brother Ian has his own Horseshoe Pass story. He and club mate Dave Davis, returning from a hostelling weekend one winter, were on the ascent when it began snowing on the mountain. At the top the snow was evenly spread two inches deep on the road.  Theirs were the only wheel marks. A car had come up from the other side. The driver thought better of chancing that descent and turned round.


The pair descended safely. They took some respite in a hotel bar on the road towards Coed Talen, thawing out in front of a roaring fire.

Resuming their ride, the weather cleared up and the roads dried out. By the time they reached the Eureka café on the Wirral eager to share their snow story, the sun was out, the sky was clear, spring was in the air and no one believed them.


A day out to the ‘shoe invariably began from Liverpool’s Pier Head where the club would meet up to take the “Ferry ‘cross the Mersey” for Birkenhead Woodside. Then we’d ride along the A41 Chester road, forking right in seven miles to stop at the Eureka for elevenses.

Then on, via the Twin Sisters – two short roller coaster hills - and a couple of miles later, across the bridge spanning the River Dee and into Wales.
That's where  the climbing began, the gradual haul of some 1.5 miles to Hawarden, down and then up through Fairy Dell, and in a few more miles the five mile drag via Coed Talen to the Llandegla Moors. This was the most direct route.

It was a shallow straight climb to the moors. If memory serves me well, it was only five per cent.  Low gears, not much conversation, up and up to the top, then a short descent before rising onto the barren moor topping out at, 1000 feet above sea level.

On a clear day you could see Merseyside 30 miles away, a dark brown stain smudging the sky line, the smoke from all those coal fires.

Off the moors and across the Ruthin to Wrexham main road a steep descent takes you to the foot of the winding climb rising up across the bare flanks of the mountain, to the summit of the Horseshoe Pass.

This was the easier side, about two miles of climbing, low gears but not very steep.

Your reward upon reaching the summit was a breath-taking view of the pass curving away to the right, dropping down the mountain side. It swung left into the apex and steepest section of the shoe, and then left again for the long, long straight down the opposite flank far below, the road gradually curving to the right – no need to touch the brakes. The fast descent continued, offering more speed on the sudden steeper drop past the ancient abbey ruins, falling spectacularly until finally levelling out to enter Llangollen, the beautiful town on the River Dee where another spectacle awaited, the Horseshoe Falls. And a café stop for dinner, of course.

Cael diwrnod braf – which is Welsh for Have a Nice Day.