Alpe d’Huez. Stelvio. Sa Calobra. Just the names of these three mountains will pique the interest of any avid road cyclist, and bring back memories of pain and suffering for those who’ve attempted them.
But 25-year-old Illi Gardner wasn’t just taking on these monsters for fun.
The Brit had the Strava segment’s Queen of the Mountain (QOM) title in her sights.
"Alpe d’Huez was one of the first major ones I got,” says Gardner, who’s since added the Stelvio and Zoncolan to her trophy cabinet.
The 2024 British hill-climb champion is one of a growing breed of col hunters – riders who head overseas to target some of the most famous (and hardest) climbs.
Ex-pro Ed Laverack is another, the 30-year-old Welshman setting the record on Mallorca’s Sa Calobra in 2022, until top British racer Tom Pidcock burst his bubble.
He returned in May 2024, and while Pidcock’s sub-23-minute record eluded him, Laverack shaved 18 seconds off his personal best.
“It’s given me something tangible to chase and go after,” he says. “It’s you versus you – you can always return to try and beat your time.”
But how did both riders approach their record attempts?
And is there any advice they can pass on for us mere mortals? From training techniques to mastering the mind, the pair share their top tips.
1. Train for the effort
To claim the Sa Calobra KOM in 2022, Laverack completed two to three weekly workouts that were near the power required to take the record.
“I guessed I’d do under 25 minutes," he recalls, "so I was building [slightly above threshold] workouts that would be five by five minutes and one by 20 minutes, and also going slightly below threshold power for 30 or 40 minutes.”
Outside of these sessions, he filled up his weeks with endurance-focused rides at a social pace. “I’ve always been a believer in general riding – it’s not overrated by any means, but it’s what you’ve got to do to supplement that high-end stuff.”
2. Get used to the gradient
You can do all the power prep in the world, but if you’re not ready for short stabs of double-digit gradients, your attempt could soon come unstuck.
“I knew I wanted to do Zoncolan, so I tried to get used to riding 14% climbs,” says Gardner. It worked too, the 25-year-old shaving more than a minute off Annemiek van Vleuten’s QOM.
If you have a long, drawn-out European mountain in your sights, it’s impossible to simulate this in the UK in one go, but Cardiff-based Gardner adds that she trains for the elevation gain cumulatively.
“There’s quite a lot of short climbs straight out the door, so I string a few together.”
3. Recce the route (if you can)
“Your pacing will benefit massively if you know the climb,” says Laverack. “You’ll know the hairpins and the potholes, and can use that to your advantage and shave a second off here and there.”
However, Gardner adds that for bigger European climbs, it’s not essential.
“If you have the luxury of doing that, then it’d help, but you don’t want to be riding the same climb all the time. Something like the Stelvio is a massive mountain and it’s going to be hard to get up it even if you’re not going hard, so you might as well go hard the first time.”
4. Power up
If your on-bike training is dialled and you’re looking to improve in other areas, Laverack suggests strength training.
“I wasn’t doing any at the time [of my Sa Calobra attempt], but I was fully invested in it with the 2024 British hill climb season and noticed a huge difference in my power production over a five-minute duration or less.”
It clearly worked too, helping Laverack to ninth at the 2024 British championships. He recommends keeping things basic with squats, single-leg lunges, Romanian deadlifts and box jumps.
“It was short rep ranges – three sets of five to eight reps – and the weight was moderate.”
5. Keep up the intensity
In the build-up to their segment-clinching attempts, neither Laverack nor Gardner bothered with tapering.
“When you’re away on a cycling holiday, you don’t want to be resting,” says Gardner.
“It’s not worth sacrificing other days when there’s lots of other great riding you could be doing.”
Both agree it’s good to include some high-intensity efforts in the days before, to keep your legs used to the power, as well as your brain.
“Mentally, you want to keep yourself on your game, as opposed to being too fresh and not being familiar with that effort,” Laverack adds.
6. Weigh up the costs
It can be tempting to splash the cash on the lightest kit, but both Gardner and Laverack say being physically and mentally prepared, and pacing correctly are the most important things.
“If you can shave a couple of hundred grams off the bike, it’s going to help, but it’s seconds as opposed to what you could gain using the right preparation,” says Laverack.
“The whole weight weenie thing has become part of the image of hill climbing, but you’ve got to think about people who don’t have that equipment and use their standard road bike – a lot of people in the UK live in flat areas and they’d go for an aero bike versus a climbing bike.”
7. Factor in the externals
You could be the best-prepared rider in the world, but it’ll count for nothing if you don’t consider things like the time of day, weather and other road users.
“Sa Calobra in particular gets extremely busy. It’s a tourist destination as well as a cycling destination, and you get buses, cars and other cyclists as well. So, the earlier, the better,” says Laverack.
This also has the benefit that temperatures will be cooler. “If you’re doing it in 25°C, you’re not going to be as good as if you’re doing it in 12-13°C, especially if you’re from the UK, where you’re more used to 13°C.”
Each ascent is unique though, and it’s not always best to be an early bird, particularly on high-altitude climbs where temperatures can vary drastically between the foot and the summit.
“It’s worth doing a bit of research,” says Gardner. “For example, you want to be trying to hit the Stelvio at around midday – the warmest time of day.”
8. Tap into time-trialling
Going hard against the clock is “a super-underrated way of getting some pacing practice”, according to Laverack.
“Even if you live somewhere flat, power is power. I know with physics it’s slightly different, because you’re going uphill and you’ve got something else to push against.
“I live in Wales, and there are some climbs around 15 minutes long, but I still don’t do those when it comes to this sort of training. A flat road, as long as it’s undisrupted and pretty steady, is good enough.”
9. Include a leg-loosener
Unless you’ve cheated and driven to a climb’s base, your attempt will include a ride from where you’re riding to its start. You can use this as a warm-up for your body and your brain, and to prepare yourself for the task at hand.
“During the ride to Sa Calobra, I kept it super-easy, but I did a ramp effort towards my threshold over the course of 10 minutes and then five 30/30s (30 seconds around the power I wanted to hold and 30 seconds easy),” says Laverack.
“It’s not long enough that you’re going to feel like it’s doing anything, but it keeps you sharp.”
10. Keep it simple
“If you have a goal power in mind and you’re slightly off the pace at the beginning, it can be pretty damaging psychologically,” concedes Gardner.
While she adds that a power meter can stop you from going into the red too early, she prefers a handwritten approach.
“Writing out the splits manually or my goal times for the first few sections helps me know roughly where I am. Once you’re a few kilometers in, you know how it’s going, and it’s about finding your limit and sticking to it,” she explains.
Laverack, meanwhile, has power, distance, time and speed on his head unit, but focuses on the latter.
“If a climb has shallow bits, then that will fluctuate, but if you’re travelling over your target speed, you can generally pedal a little bit easier, and if you’re going under your target speed, then pedal a bit harder.”
11. Perfect your pace
“It’s all about patience,” says Laverack, “and breaking the climb down to figure out where you’re going to make the most time and save some energy. It’s only the last 5-10 minutes or so where you can dig in.
“The ending of Sa Calobra is the steepest section, so it makes sense to keep something in reserve. I’m not talking much – if I’m riding at 380W, I’ll finish at 390W.
“By the time you get there, you’re already deep in the [hurt] locker, so a 10W increase is going to be dramatic.”
Gardner, on the other hand, is of the ‘in the red and cling on’ pacing strategy.
“I usually don’t pick it up much later on – there’s not a tank to empty. As you get near the top, the motivation rises, so you can always find a little bit when you can at least see the summit. Although going up Stelvio, I thought I was near the top and then I looked up and there were still 30 hairpins ahead of me.”
12. Cut some corners
“You’ve only got to look at the pros on TV. When they have a fully closed road, they [use it all] when they’re going up a climb,” says Laverack.
“It’s amazing how much of a difference it makes, not necessarily for saving a couple of metres, but to your speed as well as your momentum.
“As long as the road is clear, you can take the shortest route – the simplest way to remember it is ‘wide in, clip the apex, wide out’.”
Gardner cautions that “you want to take the most direct line, but you have to be careful, especially on a lot of these iconic ones, where caravans and things swing around”.
You should also be aware that the most direct route isn’t always the fastest.
“Sometimes, the steepest section is right on the inside. When I was climbing Zoncolan, I sliced as close to the centre as I could, and that’s also the steepest part of the road, so that’s not always the best strategy.”
13. Master your mind
Even if you’re on for a K/QOM or PB and your legs are performing as expected, an attempt can come crashing down if you’re struggling mentally.
When she hits the hurt locker, Gardner taps into some motivational tactics.
“I remind myself I’ve been looking forward to this and it’s pretty special to have the opportunity to be riding somewhere so awesome.
“I don’t struggle with finding motivation – it’s easy to push yourself. I think the difficulty is when you’re training and slogging it out back home and dreaming of being somewhere nicer. When you get there, it feels good to put it into action.”
14. Nail your nutrition
Both Gardner and Laverack suggest that the length of the effort will determine whether you need to take anything on during the climb – 30 minutes is when you might want to consider having a gel or energy drink.
“It can be pretty hard to eat while you’re on the limit,” adds Gardner.
“You have to remind yourself that it’ll help later on.”
Laverack adds that it’s important not to forget about pre-climb nutrition.
“If you’re riding to the start of the climb, you might be two hours into a ride, so you have to consume a minimum of 60g, but more like 80-100g of carbohydrates per hour, before to make sure you’ve got adequate energy for when you hit the climb.”
