There’s a new king of Box Hill, Dylan Hicks smashing his way to a 4:02 up the iconic climb.
Assisted by a full leadout from Raptor Factory Racing teammates, Hicks averaged 34.2km/h (21mph) up the five per cent Surrey slopes, the team later sharing a video on Instagram showing the highlights from the lung-burning smashfest. Cornering, stamping on the pedals out of the bends, hanging on for grim death, pain faces, and relief and jubilation once the ride was uploaded and the 4:02 confirmed.
That’s three seconds faster than previous KOM-holder Dom Jackson managed last summer, his Foran CC teammates pulling out all the stops to beat the old old KOM of 4:13 by pro rider Rory Townsend, a Q36.5 teammate of Tom Pidcock who was crowned Irish national champion for the second time earlier this year.
The blueprint for Raptor looks to have been pretty similar to what Foran pulled off a year ago, topping the leaderboard with a monstrous team effort. Not only was Hicks’s 4:02 the KOM, but teammate Alex Franks set the third-fastest time with a 4:10.
So what does a 4:02 up Box Hill look like? Famously far from the hardest climb in the world, the iconic hairpins went global during the 2012 Olympic Games road race. While some may scoff at 2km at five per cent, any climb has the potential to be torture if you ride it hard enough and with more than 1.46m attempts by 158,500 people, Box Hill’s leaderboard is about as competitive as it gets.
Have a brief scroll through and you’ll find a seemingly never-ending list of pro riders past and present — some of whom raced the climb at the Olympics, some of whom raced it in the short-lived one-day WorldTour classic that followed for several years after.
It doesn’t take long to find Simon Yates, Neilson Powless, Niki Terpstra, Thomas De Gendt, Stefan Küng and tens of other WorldTour pros and former pros in the top 100. Then there’s hill climb king Andrew Feather, the best of the British domestic scene, and literally tens of thousands of amateur riders who’ve tested their legs and lungs up it. So, I guess the point we’re making is, it’s one of the most fiercely contested Strava segments in the world.
Hicks averaged 34.2km/h (21mph), having to slow down to get around the second hairpin before kicking back up to 39km/h. Then in his final sprint he managed to peak at 40km/h and 732w, according to Strava and his power meter data. We can all imagine how that lactic acid felt.
“Huge thanks to the lads for the leadout,” he wrote on Strava. “Everyone played their part, and it properly felt like a team effort. That’s what I love about this set-up, everyone backing each other and chasing the same goal. It’s just a hill after all, but this meant a lot. Cheers boys.”
21 thoughts on “How fast?! Race team sets new Box Hill Strava KOM, with monster 34km/h leadout”
An incredible time but is it
An incredible time but is it really in the spirit of Strava KoMs to go after them with such an elaborate pacing and drafting set up? Surely the most attractive aspect of KoMs is everyone from the slowest amateur (me) to the fastest professional being able to ride the same segments and compare themselves against others; nobody but a professional can organise such advantages as Dylan had for his attempt so it takes it out of the “everyone can have a go” category. On famous segments like Box Hill Strava might at least consider having paced and unpaced categories? Otherwise what’s to stop the next person who fancies a crack at the record doing it behind a transit van with a windshield attached?
Strava is ultimately just a
Strava is ultimately just a bit of fun. There are so many factors, such as the weather, ground conditions, and other vehicles, that no two efforts can be directly compared.
Given what you have said, when a race route such as the Olympics goes over a segment, goes up Box Hill, should every ride be flagged? Or if a rider happens to get a nice tow behind a tractor, does that get flagged? Perhaps even a nice strong tailwind?
C’est la vie. It’s just a bit of fun.
Matt Page wrote:
That’s rather my point, it’s just a bit of fun so pros training and going out mob-handed to launch an assault on the record with a single-shot run rather spoils that fun, in my opnion.
Otherwise what’s to stop the
Otherwise what’s to stop the next person who fancies a crack at the record doing it behind a transit van with a windshield attached?
Why bother with all the faff? Just use an EAPC if you want to cheat.
wtjs wrote:
Wouldn’t have helped in this instance, the rider speed only dropped below 25km/h for a few seconds.
Good point! An illegal (or
Good point! An illegal (or legal) electric (or ICE) motorbike then, or the sort of concealed cheating motor that gets you banned
On Mrs H’s orders I’m re
Rendel Harris wrote:
Sounds like a lose-lose for Strava to me: spend money to develop a feature that would likely only increase arguments and ill-feeling. How would you determine what counts as paced? Does going up there on your club run count? What if it’s just you and your partner? And what happens when some disgruntled former KOM holder flags something because ‘it should have been marked as paced’ – how would they reasonably adjudicate that?
Motor paced efforts are not
Motor paced efforts are not permitted on leaderboards: https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216919507-Segment-Leaderboard-Guidelines
Obviously not strictly enforced in general (I’m not going around and hiding rides because I was behind a bus for a few seconds) but for a competitive KOM like this, I would expect it to be enforced.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Considering that Strava doesn’t even have the competence/motivation/integrity to properly apply straightforward heuristics like “if speed is greater than 200km/h then effort is invalid”…well, the phrase “a snowball’s chance in hell” comes to mind.
To be fair, the fact that folks are doing that climb at 7 watts/kg for five minutes already took it out of the “everyone can have a go” category, leadout or no leadout. Or, to put it differently: just because everyone can have a go doesn’t mean everyone has a shot at winning.
I’m with you in principle on all this, and when deciding my own behavior around these matters I try to adhere to what I consider to be the proper spirit of the competition, but the fact is that that ship has long since sailed for most folks and you and I are just yelling at the clouds.
LookAhead wrote:
…or keep reliable counts of the local legend segment efforts, on my daily commute (it’s always well short)
As long as cycling’s a sport
As long as cycling’s a sport you can do alone or in groups, I’d say yes.
I’m sure Strava could create
I’m sure Strava could create an algorithm that put group efforts into a separate category. They have all the data to do so. Unless you have a group of friends willing to pull for you and not upload their data (private rides data is still visable to Strava even if not to the rest of us) Strava could have a fastest solo segment time and a group time.
I’m sure Strava could create
I’m sure Strava could create an algorithm that put group efforts into a separate category. They have all the data to do so. Unless you have a group of friends willing to pull for you and not upload their data (private rides data is still visable to Strava even if not to the rest of us) Strava could have a fastest solo segment time and a group time.
I’m sure Strava could create
I’m sure Strava could create an algorithm that put group efforts into a separate category. They have all the data to do so. Unless you have a group of friends willing to pull for you and not upload their data (private rides data is still visable to Strava even if not to the rest of us) Strava could have a fastest solo segment time and a group time.
I’m sure Strava could create
I’m sure Strava could create an algorithm that put group efforts into a separate category. They have all the data to do so. Unless you have a group of friends willing to pull for you and not upload their data (private rides data is still visable to Strava even if not to the rest of us) Strava could have a fastest solo segment time and a group time.
Well done Dylan and the rest
Well done Dylan and the rest of the team!
I raced with hime when he was
I raced with hime when he was younger. Luckily just on the track.
Box bump? Come to the north
Box bump? Come to the north and climb a proper hill.
Smoggysteve wrote:
Fair point. Though you could also just try a few other hills in Surrey.
The beauty of Box Hill, though, is it’s like a toy version of a proper TdF climb. It’s neither steep enough or long enough to be a real one, but it has the switchbacks which gives it the feel of one (albeit relatively briefly).
Oh bother – I was going to
Oh bother – I was going to pop up there, this afternoon, but it doesn’t seem worth it, now… 😉