“Cheddar Gorge” Details (Zwift Climb Portal)
Key Details
- Category: 3rd
- Length: 4.7 km (2.9 miles)
- Elevation Gain: 171 m (561‘)
- Average Gradient: 3.6%
- Country: United Kingdom
- Watopia Climb Segment
- Watopia Descent Segment
- France Climb Segment
- France Descent Segment
- 5 W/kg: 9.7 minutes
- 4 W/kg: 12 minutes
- 3 W/kg: 14 minutes
- 2 W/kg: 20 minutes
Strava Segments
Time Estimates
The first climb listed in Simon Warren’s famous “100 Greatest Cycling Climbs“, Cheddar Gorge is one of Britain’s top natural wonders. The largest limestone gorge in Britain, its walls host stalactite-filled caves and dramatic cliffs rising hundreds of meters into the air. It’s also where Britain’s oldest complete skeleton, Cheddar Man, was excavated in 1903.
The climb itself is steepest at the start, but to really appreciate it you have to visit in real life!
Here’s the IRL segment, which is significantly shorter than Zwift’s:
I like cheddar.
Grew up on it.
The sharper the better, for grilled cheese.
Too much cheddar and prunes will become your best friend.😁
It’s a great climb, just avoid weekends and bank holidays
A must-do irl, once past the tat shops at the bottom stunning.
Wow — gorgeous:
https://fulgaz.com/fulgaz-rides/?fg_ride=ae09014c5cf134c49d70a7cb
I see what you did there.
Thought this said Chedder George which I think is a better name.
Is it true that you get 200 grams of cheese at the top to help the descent go faster?
How do you find this climb?
On Zwift you mean?
yeah, cant see it in teh schedule
It’s on the schedule every day in Feb.
cool thanks Tim… didnt see those arrows on the calendar!
Will feel quite odd riding this climb in Zwift as a “ribbon road,” as the road climb itself isn’t that special at all, but in real life the tall shear cliff faces next to the road are spectacular!
Zwift have caught the climb very short compared to real life, you can ride all the way to the start of Priddy Hill Road ~5.5 miles from the gorge and still be ascending, close to a 20min effort at near 4W/Kg.
Fun fact. Aero is faster than lightweight on this climb.
Canyon Aeroad + DT Swiss DiCut62: 251W, 13:26
Specialized SL7 + Lightweight Meilenstein: 252W, 13:29
Lucky enough to live in Cheddar and this is a ride I do a lot. Do it at night and reward yourself with a night descent but watch out for the goats!
IRL it’s the wind (and traffic) that can be a real challenge, particularly on the descent. Much nicer in Zwift 😂
I lovvvvvvve the climb portal… Not been active on Zwift or cycling for long so I’m only doing them at 50%, but it feels so good after 🤗
A great way to get back on it then maybe reduce the support percentage as you get fitter.
Ride On
I’ve been threatening to do this climb ever since I started cycling in lockdown. I cycled down it once on a fixed gear bike… That wasn’t very fun and it was the ride that prompted me to buy a road bike and fall in love with the sport.
I can actually attempt it without having to cycle from Bristol now. Yay.
Maybe I’m missing something: I see no red sections on the above VeloViewer map and the segment stats tell me that whilst the average gradient is 3.6% the max is 9.6%. But when doing the ride on Zwift I saw a few red sections and hit gradients of 11% and 12%. I just wasn’t expecting that and was forced to abandon when HR went a bit crazy!. Thanks
Depending on your screen size, the VeloViewer widgets can be at fairly low resolution, so don’t display every single gradient. But it does show some red parts on the one furthest down the page for me. And you can always open them on the VeloViewer page to get more details if you want to. Worth doing if a couple of percentage points are going to be the difference between finishing or not.
Fun to go to Google Earth and check out the root there. Who knew the cliffs were so cool?