Have to be honest.........on the few holidays we have had up your way.....we have planned them around midge season. Myself, I am not badly affected like some but I still hate them.
My skin is very sensitive so I come up in big red spots from insect bites/stings etc.
This is only the second time I've heard mention of the name Black Hill. Leaving Sabden one can go over The Nick or in the opposite direction towards Padiham. Just outside of Sabden, in the Padiham direction, there's a left turn, Back Lane?, which leads to another left, Haddings Lane. Is this Black Hill?
Only ask because in decades of riding the area with maybe 200 different people I've only heard two refer to Black Hill. Both come from outside the area.
It looks like '
Padiham Heights' would be more accurate.
I was trying to work out where
I heard it referred to as
Black Hill and finally remembered... It was when I did the ultra-hard Pendle Pedal over a decade ago. (I did the longer version AND cycled to event HQ in Colne and back from Hebden Bridge so I did 200 kms on the day, with about 3,500 m of steep climbing!)
Pendle Pedal preview said:
There followed a screaming bumpy descent into the village of Sabden, where we thought the climbing was all but over, save for some gentle undulations back to Colne. We couldn't have been more wrong as the climb out of Sabden to Black Hill reduced the Pendle Pedal, once again, to the Pendle Walk. Once at the top, the road bobbed and weaved between hedgerows following the contours of the hillside, with Blackburn, Burnley and Colne distant in the valley below, finally tracing it's way back to the event HQ.
[
LINK]
Haddings Lane...? (Looks it up.) Ah, that nasty climb From Lower Sabden Fold to Newchurch-in-Pendle. We did that one as well. IIRC, the route took in Waddington Fell, Cross of Greet, Quernmore, Trough of Bowland, Wild Board Park route to Chipping, Longridge Fell, Nick o'Pendle, Black Hill/Padiham Heights, Haddings Ln and quite a few other climbs - a tough day out on the bike!
Back to Cushelle. Seems better than Andrex now and lasts longer. Got a little Soreen loaf and having a chunk with a cuppa just now. Might have a wander before lunch.
