Not every road worth riding is a byway. Some of the best tarmac in Britain is a mountain pass, an ordinary public road with no legal ambiguity at all, that just happens to climb higher, twist tighter and reward more care than anything else nearby. Holloway maps these too, as their own Scenic road type, precisely because a rider planning a trip around a national park deserves to know they exist alongside the green lanes.
Hardknott Pass, Lake District
England's steepest road, gradients reaching 1 in 3 on both the climb out of Eskdale and the descent toward Duddon Bridge, with hairpins tight enough that many cars need more than one attempt to get round them. It's a single-track road with passing places, not a byway, so there's no legal question here at all, just a genuine test of clutch control and nerve. Ride it in the dry the first time.
Hardknott Pass, England's steepest road, dropping into Eskdale. Mick Knapton, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Bealach na Bà, Applecross
The single biggest ascent of any road in the British Isles, climbing from sea level to 626 metres in around 10km, built as a military road in 1822 and barely widened since. It's the road to Applecross from the east, and on a clear day the view down over Loch Kishorn from the top is as good as anything a green lane will ever show you. Closed by snow most winters, so this is a fair-weather trip, not a year-round one.
Bealach na Bà, Applecross. The steepest sustained climb on any road in Britain. Bewahrerderwerte, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Snake Pass, Peak District
The A57 between Glossop and the Ladybower reservoir, less extreme than Hardknott or the Bealach but genuinely useful, a fast, flowing, well-surfaced road across the top of the Peak District that links the Dark Peak's own green lanes together far quicker than the byways themselves ever could. Named after the old Snake Inn rather than anything about the road's shape, and one of the first routes closed when winter weather hits the high Pennines.
Snake Pass, linking Glossop and the Ladybower reservoir across the Dark Peak. Paul Anderson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Buttertubs Pass, Yorkshire Dales
Named after the odd limestone potholes near the summit, allegedly where farmers once rested their butter on the way to market in the cool of the shafts. A regular fixture in the Tour de Yorkshire and a genuine 2014 Tour de France climb, it's a shorter, gentler pass than the others here, more about the open, empty Dales scenery than any real technical challenge.
Buttertubs Pass, Yorkshire Dales, a 2014 Tour de France climb. Michael Graham, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Why these are on a green lane app at all
Holloway exists to map legal off-road riding, but a day built entirely around byways ignores some of the best riding in the country, and ignores the practical reality that a pass road is often the fastest, most sensible way to link two byways together anyway. Scenic roads carry no legal ambiguity whatsoever, they're ordinary public roads, so they're graded easy and shown with their own teal colour, off the map by default so they don't clutter a rider who only wants off-road lanes, one tap away for anyone planning a fuller day.
"Half the reason people get into adventure riding in the first place is roads like Hardknott and the Bealach. It felt wrong to build a map of Britain's best riding and leave them off it just because they're not byways."
- Mat Stuckey, founder of Holloway
Holloway is a free green lane finder, BOAT map and route navigation tool for England and Wales. Switch on the Scenic roads filter to see these and more alongside every legal byway, free to browse with no account needed.