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Lane near Aberfan°

640.4 m · net rise 56.8 m · total ascent 63.5 m · overall 8.9% · evidence quality B (good) · Aberfan · Mid Glamorgan ·

Shape: stepped — 47% of the climbing sits in a quarter of the distance; longest continuous stretch at 10%+ is 146 m.

Found purely from mapping and LiDAR data, and not yet matched against books, race records or lists — it may be well known to locals under a name we've never heard. It was cross-checked against the OS road network, surface models and map tags, but a discovery can still be an artifact of the terrain model or the map. Treat it as a well-evidenced hypothesis until someone has ridden it. If you know this road, tell us what you found — photographs, corrections and local knowledge all welcome; the map links below let you scout it first.

° The name is provisional: this climb is not yet matched to a documented name, so it was named from nearby map places. There is no evidence of local usage — (auto-named from gazetteer; was discovered-street-51-6909-3-3511). Corrections welcome.

≈ Overhead cover (tree canopy or structures) spans 32% of this route — detected by comparing the surface model (DSM, treetops and rooftops) against the terrain model (DTM, bare ground). Under cover the bare-ground model is built from fewer laser returns, so metre-scale readings can wobble; maxima whose window sits in a covered zone are marked ≈ below — less certain — the flag does not say whether the true value is higher or lower. Longer windows average over more clean ground and are steadier.

Gradient ladder what do windows mean?

WindowMaximumLocated at
2 m (diagnostic)≈29%533–535 munder overhead cover terrain reads 213.3% at 222–224 m across a structure — excluded
3 m (diagnostic)≈26%33–36 munder overhead cover terrain reads 207.6% at 221–224 m across a structure — excluded
5 m≈25%31–36 munder overhead cover terrain reads 194.0% at 221–226 m across a structure — excluded
10 m≈23%25–35 munder overhead cover terrain reads 133.5% at 220–230 m across a structure — excluded
20 m≈22.4%16–36 munder overhead cover terrain reads 82.5% at 220–240 m across a structure — excluded
25 m≈22.1%11–36 munder overhead cover terrain reads 69.4% at 218–243 m across a structure — excluded
50 m≈19.5%1–51 munder overhead cover terrain reads 39.8% at 220–270 m across a structure — excluded
100 m≈17.4%1–101 munder overhead cover terrain reads 22.0% at 198–298 m across a structure — excluded

may start earliermay continue beyond end Extent detection suggests reviewing where this climb starts/ends.

Map

Check this route yourself: Google Maps route via their router · Street View at the base where coverage exists · geojson.io our exact measured line · OpenTopoMap

No aerial layer here: Britain has no open or government source of aerial photography at road scale — the pan-government APGB imagery is licensed to the public sector only, unlike the LiDAR this survey is measured from. Street View, where it exists, is the visual check.

This climb's data: OCL JSON — the full gradient ladder, quality flags and provenance in the OpenClimb Ladder format.

Access: Road status under verification: the road audit could not fully vouch for this route (way 547141415: unnamed service way; way 547141415: service way, surface untagged; way 547141416: unnamed service way; way 547141416: service way, surface untagged; way 547141417: unnamed service way; way 547141417: service way, surface untagged; openroads covered 94%, restricted 73%). It may include service-road or restricted sections — check access on the ground.

Measured, not vetted. This page records what the laser record shows about the road's shape — nothing more. Nobody has necessarily ridden or inspected this road for the survey, and a page here is not a recommendation and no guarantee that the road is open, surfaced, rideable or safe. Gates, private sections, missing rights of way and hazards do not show up in elevation data. Check access and conditions on the ground and make your own judgment.

Ridden it, or know better? Submit data for this climb no account needed ·

Route colour = gradient over a 25 m window: <10% 10–20% 20–25% ≥25%

  © OpenStreetMap contributors · topo tiles © OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA) · vector tiles OpenFreeMap

Lane near Aberfan LiDAR hillshade map with contours

Profile

The profile and gradient chart share one position — move your pointer over them and the marker follows. Colors are the gradient bands; the shaded span is the steepest 25 m. Any 25 m figure is good to about a point either way (why).

Lane near Aberfan elevation profile
Lane near Aberfan rolling gradient profile
 

Measurement card

ElevationWelsh Government — Welsh Government LiDAR 1m DTM (2020-2023)
Resolution / CRS1.0 m grid, EPSG:27700; sampled every 1.0 m, bilinear interpolation
Tileswg_del_10_306200_20210227dtm.tif, wg_del_5_306199_20201224dtm.tif
Road centrelineOpenStreetMap (local PBF extract), snapshot 2026-08-10T20:21:40Z
Quality statusevidence quality B; caveated windows: structure excluded
AnalysisOCL 0.1.0, analysis 0.1.0, run chains-wales-pilot-260827, calculated 2026-08-27

Provenance

{
  "analysis_version": "0.1.0",
  "sample_interval_m": 1.0,
  "interpolation": "bilinear",
  "smoothing": "none",
  "gradient_windows_m": [
    5.0,
    10.0,
    20.0,
    25.0,
    50.0,
    100.0
  ],
  "diagnostic_windows_m": [
    2.0,
    3.0
  ],
  "elevation_crs": "EPSG:27700",
  "elevation_resolution_m": 1.0,
  "elevation_tiles": [
    "data/cache/wales/dtm_1m/wg_del_10_306200_20210227dtm.tif",
    "data/cache/wales/dtm_1m/wg_del_5_306199_20201224dtm.tif"
  ],
  "calculated_at": "2026-08-27T06:13:58+00:00",
  "road_source": "OpenStreetMap (local PBF extract)",
  "road_attribution": "\u00a9 OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL",
  "osm_pbf_path": "data/cache/pbf/wales-2026-08-11.osm.pbf",
  "osm_snapshot": "2026-08-10T20:21:40Z",
  "run_id": "chains-wales-pilot-260827",
  "elevation_provider": "Welsh Government",
  "elevation_dataset": "Welsh Government LiDAR 1m DTM (2020-2023)",
  "elevation_licence": "Open Government Licence v3 \u2014 \u00a9 Crown copyright Welsh Government",
  "elevation_catalogue_layer": "geonode:welsh_government_lidar_tile_catalogue_2020_2023",
  "elevation_tile_ids": [
    "wg_del_10_306200_20210227dtm.tif",
    "wg_del_5_306199_20201224dtm.tif"
  ],
  "elevation_capture_dates": [
    "25-12-2020",
    "27-02-2021"
  ],
  "climb_origin": "discovered",
  "naming_note": "auto-named from gazetteer; was discovered-street-51-6909-3-3511",
  "license": "ODbL-1.0",
  "license_url": "https://howsteep.org/licensing"
}