The UK hill climb season is a uniquely British quirk of cycling culture that sees riders, racing in a time trial format, grind up climbs steep enough to make your stomach curdle, on courses between two and 20 minutes long.
With few to no flat sections, there is scant advantage to be found in chasing aero gains. While aero road bikes may dominate in today's pro peloton, here weight weenie culture is encouraged in its purest form, with bikes, bodies and clothing stripped down to the absolute bare minimum.
Chopped-off drop bars, unforgiving carbon saddles, paper-thin tubular tyres and no cake for months on end define this curious section of cycling society.
With the season taking place from early September to late October, the CTT UK National Hill Climb Championships mark the end of this short but intense spectacle.
The vertiginous parcours of the 2022 National Championships on Old Horseshoe Pass attracted many feathery bikes, and we’re pleased to bring you a selection of our favourite bikes from today’s race.
Rebecca Richardson’s Specialized S-Works Aethos
Rebecca Richardson (Team Brother UK) took seventh place in the women’s race riding this stunning, custom-painted Specialized S-Works Aethos.
The bike was hand-painted by Richardson in a “stream of consciousness style” with motifs based on her home and family in Wales.
The bike is dripping with the finest weight weenie carbon exotica out there.
Richardson’s bike rolls on AX Lightness rims paired with Zed Wheels hubs.
Everything is then laced together using Berd polymer spokes. An ultra-light Vittoria Corsa Speed tyre is used up front with a Vittoria Service Course tyre specced out back, for slightly more grip on steep, often wet roads.
Darimo supplies the finishing kit, including the T1 Loop seatpost.
This uses Dyneema fibre loops to clamp the saddle instead of traditional solid clamps.
The bike’s stock SRAM Red eTap AXS drivetrain has been modified with an XX1 mountain bike crankset.
This is fitted with a diminutive 28t chainring (chainrings in the 32 to 40t range are more typical on 1x drivetrains for hill climbs).
According to Richardson, running such a small chainring meant she could remain seated for the majority of the climb, reducing the chances of wheel spin.
It also meant she could use cogs in the centre of the cassette. These offer a better chain line compared to using the extreme ends of the cassette, improving shifting performance and efficiency.
All of this adds up to a bike that weighs just 5.0kg – mighty impressive for any bike, let alone a road bike with disc brakes.
Introducing the Old Horseshoe Pass...
The 2022 National Hill Climb Championship was joint-organised by Velotik and Wrexham Roads Club on Old Horsehoe Pass, which is more commonly known as Old Shoe.
The climb sits to the east of the better-known Horseshoe Pass, taking a direct route up to the eastern flank of Maesyrychen Mountain via the wall-like valley north of Llangollen.
The course climbs 194m over 1.5km at an average gradient of 13 per cent, according to Strava.
The climb starts with a sustained punchy ramp through greasy birch woodland.
Riders then emerge from the forest at roughly the halfway point, marked by a treacherously slippery cattle grid.
The climb then opens onto a grassy moorland amphitheatre, where riders face a series of lung-busting ramps before a shallow 100m sprint to the finish at the Ponderosa Cafe.
Dan Leatherbarrow’s Dolan Seta
Fixed-gear bikes are a regular sight at hill climbs in the UK.
Provided the gradient is consistent and you get your gearing selection right, a fixie offers an addictively efficient and – dare we say it – fun ride quality.
They also give riders with limited funds the chance to build a truly lightweight bike on a budget, all while enjoying heaps of praise from horrified onlookers.
Dan Leatherbarrow’s (Cheltenham & County Cycling Club) Dolan Seta is the prototypical example of a budget hill climb bike.
Based on a Dolan Seta track bike frameset, Leatherbarrow estimates he’s spent less than £1,000 on a charmingly hodge-podge bike that weighs just 5.3kg.
To start, the bike rolls on a pair of X-Treme Nano Elite wheels purchased on eBay for £150, with the rear hub replaced with a double-fixed flip-flop hub for £50 by a local wheel builder.
The carbon shell saddle was also purchased on eBay for just £20, as were the “not very good” new – old stock – 1980s Ultimate brake levers.
These use a nearly all-plastic construction but, crucially, are very light at just 120g for the pair.
Leatherbarrow ran a 38x22 gear for Old Shoe and was very pleased with his ride, taking 49th place.
Leatherbarrow also reckons he came second to 2015 national champion and 2022 bronze medalist, Richard Bussell (AeroCoach) in the non-existent fixed gear category.
Jack Evans’ custom Canyon Ultimate CF SLX
Jack Evans (Gorilla Coffee Cycling Club) joined BikeRadar back in November 2020.
He is one of the best athletes on the BikeRadar team, very nearly tickling a top-10 result at the Sodbury Cycle Sport hill climb back in early October.
That led our Jack to make his debut at the nationals and we accosted him before his ride to talk about his season so far and his tactics for the day.
Keep your eyes peeled for a full episode of Hill Climb Diaries on our YouTube channel and a special hill climb edition of the BikeRadar Podcast to see (and hear) how he got on.
However, as a teaser, we can confirm Jack rode the same Canyon Ultimate CF SLX as on his recent alpine adventure in Davos.
Joanna Blackburn’s Cannondale SuperSix Evo Hi-Mod
The Cannondale SuperSix Evo is the perfect basis for a hill climb bike.
Compared to most exotic lightweight framesets, the SuperSix Evo was built in large quantities, so it is usually possible to buy second-hand framesets for a decent price. That the SuperSix also looks tremendous with its classic double diamond lines is another draw for many.
There were probably close to a dozen SuperSix Evos to choose from at Old Shoe, but it was hard to miss Joanna Blackburn’s (High North Performance) no-expense-spared build.
The Hi-Mod frameset has been sanded back to raw carbon and then lacquered, with striking gold logos applied to the head and down tube. The front derailleur hanger has also been removed, saving a handful more grams.
The bike uses an 11-speed-era SRAM Red eTap rear derailleur, controlled by a pair of matching shifters.
A THM Clavicula crankset paired with a 34t Wolf Tooth 1x narrow-wide chainring has also been sanded back to cut every possible gram.
Cane Creek EE brakes and Darimo finishing kit round out the build.
The complete bike weighs just 4.05kg in its optimum race-day spec, though Blackburn cautioned the bike would be slightly over that due to the heavier-duty tyres fitted for the slippery Old Shoe course.
Illi Gardner’s Factor O2
Illi Gardner (Wahoo Endurance Zone p/b Le Col) demolished the women’s field, putting a huge 23-second gap between her and silver medalist Mary Wilkinson (Team Boompods).
Other than a switch to lightweight wheels and a cockpit mod, Gardner’s build shows little concession to obsessive weight weenie-ism.
The close-to-stock Factor O2 weighs just over 6kg in its pictured build, and is the same bike Gardner rode for her former Everesting record in July of this year.
The bike is fitted with an 11-speed Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 mechanical groupset and a trimmed-down 11-32 cassette.
AX Lightness rims paired with Zed hubs feature once again.
According to Gardner, the upright cockpit enables her to remain seated without being excessively hunched over when climbing.
This allows her to pedal at her preferred higher cadences while also biasing weight towards the rear of the bike, improving traction.
A cue sheet (if you can call it that for a 1.5km climb) was tapped to Gardner’s top tube, giving target times split into 200m segments.
Natalie Stevenson’s Specialized Aethos
Natalie Stevenson (Glasgow Ivy CC) rode her 6.1kg Specialized Aethos to 12th place with a time of 8:03 minutes.
Like Richardson, Stevenson also swapped her stock cranks to a pair of SRAM mountain bike cranks, though she opted for a slightly larger 32t chainring.
The wide Boost spacing of the crankset is not compatible with the road chain line of the Force eTap AXS drivetrain, so a custom 3D-printed spacer is used on the non-driveside of the spindle to get the chainring in the right place.
Like most riders on the day, Stevenson swapped her preferred lightweight Vittoria Corsa Speed tyres in favour of a grippier Continental Competition tyre on the rear.
The bike retains its stock Roval Alpinist one-piece cockpit and seatpost, with the latter topped by a Toseek saddle.
These saddles have become something of a cult hit in the hill climb scene – despite only costing around £40 on Amazon, they weigh just 100g. You have to spend much, much more to get anything significantly lighter.
A delightful Bentley Components Yorkshire rose top cap was our highlight of the build.
Charlie Openshaw’s Canyon Ultimate CF SLX
Charlie Openshaw’s (Team Lifting Gear) Canyon Ultimate CF SLX provides a window into what's possible with the brand's lightweight frame.
Openshaw’s bike uses the same frameset and groupset as BikeRadar's Jack Evans, but takes things to the next level with some very tasty lightweight components.
The carbon chainring immediately draws the eye. Openshaw assures us that, despite a full season of hard racing, the chainring has held up fine, with no appreciable wear visible.
The 11-speed SRAM eTap drivetrain is controlled by a pair of Blips taped to the underside of the Zipp Vuka Alumina base bar.
A pair of Planet X CNC brakes drop significant weight compared to the stock SRAM Red rim brakes, as do the shallow Zed wheels and Vittoria Corsa Speed tyres.
A CTT rule change in 2021 introduced compulsory helmets and made it mandatory for riders to run front and rear lights at all times.
The latter has seen riders find creative solutions to keep weight to a minimum, but Openshaw’s is probably our favourite, using a pair of LED lights, snaffled from party balloons, taped to his bars and saddle to stay on the right side of the regulations.
This is just a small selection of the many amazing bikes that were on show at the 2022 National Championships.
Keep your eyes peeled for more on the BikeRadar YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe to the BikeRadar Podcast so you can hear all about how Jack Evans got on in his first hill climb season.
