Detour #11: Britain's Bendiest Road
On the Dorset-Wiltshire border you’ll find the bendiest road in Britain.
For around three quarters of a mile the B3081 is so twisty and tortuous that it exerts similar g-forces on a car driver to those a rollercoaster does on its rider.
Seriously. A bunch of boffins hired by a tyre company measured the g-forces on this route before declaring it Britain’s Bendiest Road. It’s something the locals have known for a very long time. They don’t call it Zig Zag Hill for nothing.
Pass the national speed limit sign at CannCommon and accelerate up towards the first of the six tightly-linked bends that give the hill its name. As you ascend through the dense woodland, if you look up to your right you can just about see the road above through the trees. It’s a very tight left hairpin, so it’s down to second gear, twirl the steering wheel and accelerate again.
No sooner have you changed up to third than you’ll need to brake again, drop a gear and hug the outside of a right-hander which then goes immediately into a left. A short straight leads into another right and then the tightest cambered corner of the lot. Another left and a right and you'll be out of the woods and into open countryside with spectacular views of the Dorset/Wiltsthire borders.
In a little over one minute from the start the ride is over. But unlike at a theme park you don’t need to join a queue for another go and can simply turn around to try again at a parking spot just beyond the summit. Heading downhill it’s even more challenging, with gravity helping, rather than hindering your progress, the corners rush up even faster and through the two tightest hairpins you will feel yourself being pushed into edge of your seat.
Detour once took to Zig Zag Hill with an accelerometer on board to verify its claim to fame and it turns out that through those tricky bends there really is an average lateral acceleration of almost 1g. That’s the level of force you’d normally only experience in a car on a race track, but this is at a safe and legal speed on the public road. What’s more, for a fraction of second the force spikes to 3g, and that truly is rollercoaster territory.
Who needs Alton Towers, anyway?
Words Nik Berg Twitter | Instagram
Photography Nik Berg
Roadbook
Class: Quick trip
Name: Zig Zag Hill B3081
Route: Cann Common to Tollard Royal
Country: UK
Distance: 0.75 miles