Scotland has the NC500. Ireland boasts the Wild Atlantic Way? So why doesn’t England have an iconic bike route? In a bid to rectify this, James Oxley and Billy Johnson decided to create one. And they called it the Magnificent Seven.
After four years working as a staff writer for the greatest motorcycle magazine in the world, the time has come to head back to my native land of Australia. Unfortunately, that means giving up riding motorbikes and being able to call it work. It’s a tough decision, but the lure of sunny Down Under is strong, and I’ve got plenty of biking adventures to look forward to back in my homeland.
But before I jumped on that plane, James, ABR’s Editor and a good riding pal, suggested we go out for one final ride together and document it for the magazine. Over the years, we’ve ridden the finest biking roads the UK has to offer together, from Scotland’s NC500 to lapping the coast of Cornwall, so it seemed appropriate to go out with a bang.
Then James posed the question over a beer one day: “What is England’s iconic motorcycle route? The USA has Route 66, Australia has the Great Ocean Road, and Ireland has the Wild Atlantic Way. Sure, the UK as a whole has Land’s End to John o’Groats, but what is England’s iconic ride? The South West 660? Maybe, but I wouldn’t say it has become iconic, and most people drive it anyway. Why don’t we try and come up with our own? One aimed solely at bikers.”
[YOU CAN WATCH A VIDEO OF JAMES AND BILLY RIDING THE ROUTE BELOW]
Then I chipped in: “If it’s going to be an iconic English route, it should have a full dose of all the things I’ll miss about England. A ‘best of English’ route, if you will. You can keep the drizzle, but I’m talking about welcoming pubs, hearty food, historic, quaint, and eccentric sights, proper good cups of tea, postcard-perfect villages, and spectacular landscapes. Oh, and biking roads that are as enjoyable to ride as you’ll find anywhere in the world.”
We put our heads together and came up with a list of outstanding roads, which we then whittled down to a shortlist of some of the very best stretches of tarmac that England has to offer bikers. At this point, we realised we had something pretty special on our hands. There were seven roads that stood out. Roads that I simply had to ride before leaving the country.
Each was special in its own way, whether it was the drama of the scenery or the twisting nature of its curves. Each was thrilling, spectacular… magnificent, even. So, what else to call the route than the Magnificent Seven? With the name decided, the roads chosen, and the pit stops along the way marked on our maps, all that was left to do was get ourselves up to the start point in Harrogate on a fine spring day.
HIGH CLASS
Yorkshire may be known for its down to earth people and friendly atmosphere, but it also happens to be home to Harrogate, which was recently named the UK’s third poshest town by The Daily Telegraph newspaper. With its wide choice of hotels, restaurants, and close proximity to both the Yorkshire Dales and the A1(M) motorway, it was also the perfect place to start our route.
We arrived on two very impressive motorcycles, which certainly fitted into the salubrious surroundings. I’d chosen the excellent Tracer 7 GT, and James decided to one-up me by going for the Tracer 9 GT+ Y-AMT. With many miles of twisting tarmac ahead, these two adventure tourers would be in their element over the coming two days.
Riding into the centre of town, Harrogate looks every bit a Britain in Bloom winner, with jaunty explosions of colour in the flowerbeds and wrought iron terraces framing the boutique shops. What’s best is seeing one of the most quintessentially English sights imaginable: a line of people patiently queuing up to get a seat in the famous Bettys Café Tea Rooms. And while we’re tempted by the cakes and scones on offer, we decide to start the day with a traditional English delicacy I’m certainly going to miss when I’m back home: breakfast at Greggs. And in particular, the sausage rolls.
Suitably filled up, we jump on the bikes and within minutes we’re out into the countryside. A few miles into the route, we stop to check out Brimham Rocks. This collection of bizarre rocks has been carved by wind and water over millions of years until they’ve assumed fantastical shapes, with some balancing on impossible stacks that look like they’re just one strong gust from toppling over. If Brimham Rocks were found along Route 66, they’d be a world-famous landmark, but being understatedly English, no one shouts about this geological marvel, and it is easy to miss.
A few miles down the road, we pass by the Coldstones Cut, a monumental piece of public art that, from above looks amusingly phallic. It’s a 10-minute walk up a relatively steep hillside from the car park, which I’d recommend, if only to enjoy a stroll along its shaft. The views from the top are spectacular.
FLEET MOSS (THE REMOTE ONE)
With a couple of eccentric stops already under our belts and the countryside well and truly opening up to reveal the Yorkshire Dales in all their pastoral splendour, we’re soon on the first road of the Magnificent Seven: Fleet Moss. As Yorkshire’s highest paved road at 589m, it’s wild, remote, and has that striking quality of seemingly floating over the moorland around it, allowing you to disappear into an otherwise remarkably inaccessible landscape. Aside from the scenery, it’s got plenty to offer bikers, with long, flowing turns and some steep gradients that our Tracers eagerly lap up.
Fleet Moss drops us back into civilisation at the town of Hawes in the heart of the Dales. Home to the Wensleydale Creamery, it’s here that I discover a dark secret James has been hiding from me. He’s never seen Wallace and Gromit. To me, Wallace and Gromit sits alongside Thomas the Tank Engine and Captain Cook as part of my foundational knowledge of England growing up. And when I arrived to live here, I was delighted to discover that eccentric tinkerers with a fondness for knitwear and cheese do actually exist in the UK.
I fill James in on the basics (Wallace is the bloke, Gromit is the dog, and their favourite snack is Yorkshire’s finest Wensleydale cheese), and we visit the creamery to sample a buffet of local cheeses before leaving the town and launching straight into the second of our seven roads.
BUTTERTUBS PASS (THE FAMOUS ONE)
Jeremy Clarkson once called Buttertubs Pass ‘England’s only truly spectacular road’, but I reckon there’s a few that are just as good. To my eyes, Buttertubs is the perfect example of what makes biking in England so rewarding, and so different to other places in the world. It’s not that it’s particularly grand or immaculately engineered, like the dozens of Alpine passes in Switzerland, France, or Italy. And at under six miles, it does feel like it’s over all too soon. But what it does have in abundance is character.
It’s got a personality, the way the tarmac binds to the wall of the valley, following the footsteps of the farmers and traders who once used it to reach the market in Hawes. At some points it’s dramatic, with a few hundred feet suddenly tumbling away from you to the side, while at other times it’s simply gorgeous. The road undulates and twists with a natural rhythm that’s so unlike a perfectly constructed Swiss pass, which is all logic and no emotion, and that’s what makes it such a pleasure to ride.
Best of all, it connects us to another stunning road that wriggles over the moors. This thin stretch of tarmac unwinds across a vast plateau and takes us right to one of England’s most iconic pubs, the Tan Hill Inn. It’s one of the most remote pubs in the country and certainly the highest, sitting at 528m above sea level. Once serving miners, drovers, and farmers who populated the area in the industrial age, it lives on as a tourist destination. Yet, thankfully, it retains the spirit of a proper local boozer. In winter, it’s not unheard of for visitors to become trapped at the pub due to inclement weather, leading to the world’s cosiest lock-ins. But with the skies remaining blue for James and me, we’re able to hit the road once we’ve helped ourselves to a superb lunch.
CHAPEL FELL (THE HIGH ONE) 
The next few miles of riding prove that, although we’d picked out seven roads to anchor this UK route, almost every road that stitches them together is just as much a pleasure to ride. Leaving the pub, we snake along a fantastic strip of blacktop that takes us out of Yorkshire and into Cumbria. We spend a couple of minutes on the A66, and then a right-hand turn takes us on the B6276 into County Durham. We then follow up our visit to the highest pub in England with a journey over the highest paved road in the country, Chapel Fell.
Stretching over Harthope Moss, a remote and often bleak part of the Pennines, we can’t help but feel tiny compared to our surroundings, and at the mercy of the elements. Powerful winds often batter this area, and we found ourselves threatened by gusts determined to blow us off our lines. But the Tracers’ superb handling held firm, and the Roadhound tyres our bikes were shod with stayed grippy as we struck out across the sepia-toned hills on the strand of tarmac that is Chapel Fell (the third road of the Magnificent Seven) through the rugged landscape. In a way, it reminds me of the outback in Australia, with its sense of isolation and an environment that is as much a friend as a foe, although here the dust and dirt are replaced by rain and bog.
With three of our seven roads ticked off, we reach our stop for the night in the small North Pennines town of Alston by late afternoon. It makes for a nice change, as often James and I set ourselves huge miles on these routes (especially if we’re filming them for YouTube, as we are with this one) and don’t get off the bikes until well into the night. This time, we’re able to park up, check into the local hostel, and be down at the local pub before sundown, although we still manage to miss a feed, since the cook has already clocked off. Thankfully, our huge lunches from the Tan Hill Inn were substantial enough to keep us going, and we enjoy a few fine local ales before hitting the hay, lulled to sleep by the sound of James’ twin-cylinder snoring. I may even miss that when I’m back home… maybe.
THE HARTSIDE PASS (THE LONG ONE)
Awakening the next morning, we step outside to a world shrouded in fog and mist, which is a shame because a few miles out of Alston is one of the most spectacular views of the entire route. A surprisingly tasty breakfast bap from the town’s very well-stocked petrol station shop lifts our moods, and we head west, making steady progress through the thick fog to the top of the Hartside Pass, the fourth road of the Magnificent Seven. Stretching for around 10 miles from Alston to Melmerby, it’s the longest pass on our list.
On a clear day, we would have been treated to a superb view across the suitably named Vale of Eden. Penrith, a matchbox-sized town, could have been seen in the distance, and beyond, the Lake District would have appeared like a mound of anthills on the horizon. Today, however, there’s nothing but swirling grey fog. We swing around the sublime hairpin just below the top of the pass, and a couple of turns later, we drop out of the cloud layer and the world fills with colour.
The Hartside feels more like a European pass than most of the roads you’ll find in England, with predictable, flowing curves, good sighting, and stable cambers that mean, to use the English phrase, you can really give it some welly. The triple in James’ Tracer 9 GT+ sings ahead of me, while the parallel twin below me joins in the chorus, and we quickly descend from the Pennines onto the valley floor, making swift work of the road across to Penrith.
There’s a bit of A-road work here to get across to the Lake District but the anticipation only builds as we ride towards cloud-covered mountains growing larger by the minute. We stop off at the biker-friendly Filling Station Café on the outskirts of Keswick, where I treat myself to an English scone and a cuppa, then it’s into the Lakes and a circuit of England’s finest biking roads.
B5289 (THE LAKESIDE ONE)
The Whinlatter Pass that connects Bassenthwaite to Buttermere didn’t quite make it as an official member of the Magnificent Seven, but it’s still a glorious road through dense forestry that transports you from the rugged mountain scenery to a lush vision of pine and moss. However, it’s at the other end that we find our fifth magnificent road. Although the B5289 isn’t a pass (at least at first), and it doesn’t have a sexy name, it more than deserves to be a part of the Magnificent Seven for the sheer beauty of the landscape that it winds through.
It approaches Crummock Water from the north, entering this huge high-sided valley and hugging the lake, as scree from the fell tops tumbles into the glimmering water. It’s simply breathtaking, and the view gets even better as you cross into Buttermere. In the sky beyond the lake is Haystacks, which the famous guidebook author Alfred Wainwright described as his favourite fell in the Lakes. In fact, there’s a memorial to the man himself in the small church in Buttermere village, with a window above that opens up to this very view.
HONISTER PASS (THE SPECTACULAR ONE)
Once you’ve reached the end of Buttermere lake, the B5289 seamlessly transitions into road number six: the Honister Pass. It’s one of the most atmospheric stretches of tarmac in the Lake District, at first winding along a river before rising up to meet the Honister Slate Mine, where it squeezes through a great stone gate at the top like something lifted from the pages of Lord of the Rings.
As we ride past the mine, which is England’s last remaining slate quarry and also a popular tourist spot, I think to myself that although we’ve got plenty of mines and quarries in Australia, they rarely look this charming and picturesque. On the other side of the peak, the Honister Pass quickly shrugs off a few hundred feet of elevation via some tidy curves and drops into Borrowdale.
Our route takes us back towards Keswick alongside the mighty Derwent Water before swinging south through Thirlmere, iconic fells like Helvellyn and Skiddaw framing the picture. Then we ride into Grasmere, where we pick up a few delicious slices of the town’s world-famous gingerbread from the bakery that’s been producing it in exactly the same spot for over 170 years. It’s a nice little sugar high before riding the epic double-header finale of the Magnificent Seven.
WRYNOSE AND HARDKNOTT PASSES (THE DOUBLE HEADER)
OK, we have cheated a little bit. There are more than seven magnificent roads on this route. In fact, almost all of them are spectacular. But we liked the name and stuck with it. And so, to make the finale a true knockout blow, we decided to combine two of the most thrilling passes in the Lakes, and frankly in all of the UK, into one. This makes sense because they are located next to each other.
We approach from the east, winding up through Langdale and join the Wrynose Pass. It begins slowly at first, but soon you gain height and the entire valley opens up, the road scrambling up the hillside like the goat track it once was. Passing the point where the historic counties of Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmorland meet, we reach the summit of the pass on a rocky crag and descend steadily into another impressive valley. Scafell Pike (the highest point in England) is away to our right, and masses of rust-coloured bracken and tangles of stone walls form a patchwork on the hills to our left. There’s enough time to fully admire the view before we approach the start of the toughest road in England, the Hardknott Pass.
Trod by ancient Britons, Romans, Vikings, and now bikers who are brave enough to tackle the tight hairpins and steep gradients, the mighty Hardknott echoes with ghosts of the past. In fact, it’s said that on a quiet, dark night you can sometimes hear the footsteps of Roman soldiers as they march to the fort that lies in ruins by the side of the road. Don’t strain your ears too much, however, because this is a road that demands attention, especially if a tourist in a campervan is coming the other way and finds themselves out of their depth. The cambers and corners here are unforgiving, so if you need to stop, be mindful that your foot really can meet the road.
But with two great bikes between us and the Hardknott Pass clear of traffic, James and I fully enjoy the experience of riding this unique stretch of tarmac through one of the most spectacular parts of England. It sums up everything I love about riding in my adopted country, following these paved lines of history through landscapes that are rugged yet beautiful. At the foot of the pass, our route came to an end, and what a fitting finale it was. At the end of a long but brilliant day, we parked up, checked into the hostel a mile or so down the road in Eskdale, and then indulged in a few local ales at the Woolpack Inn a short walk away.
Over the 200 miles of our route, we’d immersed ourselves in England’s most spectacular landscapes, and we had seen incredible sights, armed with just two wheels and a sense of adventure. I’d go as far as saying it’s hard to find a country anywhere else in the world that packs so much into such little space. The Magnificent Seven may have been my final ride in England (for now), and what a way to sign off, particularly as it was shared with a good mate on superb bikes. With roads like these, it makes it bloody hard to leave.
THE BIKES
This is the perfect route for an adventure tourer, and we had two of the best around. I was riding Yamaha’s Tracer 7 GT, while James had the more powerful and more tech-packed Tracer 9 GT+ Y-AMT. My Tracer 7 was a superb blend of power, comfort, and handling at an attractive price. And it’s just so damn capable and fun to ride.
I’ll admit, though, there were a few times I was jealous of James’ Tracer 9 GT+ Y-AMT with its throaty triple engine, automatic gear changes, and fancy lights that adjusted their beam for oncoming traffic.
Here’s what James had to say: “The Tracer 9 GT I rode may be one of the most advanced bikes money can buy, but all that technology serves a purpose. It enhances what is already a superbly well-designed and engineered motorcycle to create one of the best bikes money can buy right now.”
Both Yamahas proved to be outstanding machines and were ideal for a weekend adventure like ours. They come highly ABR recommended. You can find out more about them at:
www.yamaha-motor.eu.
THE TYRES
We used Eurogrip Roadhound sport touring tyres on this trip which are designed to offer high performance while providing the longevity demanded from long-distance touring.
The Roadhounds use a dual-compound design that combines harder rubber through the centre for stability and mileage with softer rubber on the outside edge for enhanced grip in the twisties.
Eurogrip offers a wide range of tyres whether you need rubber for touring, commuting, trail riding, or a mix of them all. You can take a look at the full Eurogrip range over at:
eurogriptyresmts.co.uk.
THE ROUTE
Plug these waypoints into your SatNav device to follow as near as dammit the route. You can also find a GPX file of the ride to follow at:
www.bit.ly/ABR7
- Bettys Café Tea Rooms, 1 Parliament St, Harrogate, HG1 2QU
- Brimham Rocks, Brimham Rocks Rd, Harrogate, HG3 4DW
- Coldstones Cut Car Park, B6265, Harrogate, HG3 5BJ
- Fleet Moss, Skipton, DL8 3DQ
- Buttertubs Pass, Cliff Gate Rd, DL11 6DR
- Tan Hill Inn, Long Causeway, DL11 6ED
- Newbiggin Chapel, Newbiggin, Barnard Castle, DL12 0TY
- Westgate Caravan & Camping Site, DL13 1LN
- Harthope Moss, Bishop Auckland, DL13 1NN (Chapel Fell)
- Hartside Pass, Alston, CA9 3BW
- Whinlatter Pass, CA12 5TW
- Honister Pass, Keswick, CA12 5XN
- Grasmere Gingerbread Shop, Church Cottage, LA22 9SW
- Hardknott Roman Fort, Hardknott Pass, CA19 1TH
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Here is the full list of the seven magnificent biking roads underpinning this route:
- FLEET MOSS (the remote one)
- BUTTERTUBS PASS (the famous one)
- CHAPEL FELL (the high one)
- HARTSIDE PASS (the long one)
- B5289 (the scenic one)
- HONISTER PASS (the lakeside one)
- WRYNOSE & HARDKNOTT PASSES (the double header)
