“If you’re not wearing aero socks, you’re not getting a KOM”: The painstaking prep that went into bagging the ultimate Box Hill Strava KOM

For a brief period at the beginning of September, the small, often eccentric world of British cycling went Box Hill crazy. Within the space of just a few days, in a manner akin to the Hour Record’s 1990s heyday, three separate concerted attempts were made to secure the fastest ever recorded time (on Strava) on one of the UK’s most famous hills, one that has been attempted an astonishing 1.4 million times on the ride-sharing app.

Two were successful, each knocking a significant chunk of time off the previous KOM, during a week when the Box Hill Strava War eclipsed even the Vuelta a España’s riveting GC battle as the most talked about cycling event in the world (alright, I might be exaggerating there).

To mark this momentous moment in online British cycling history, the new owner of the Box Hill KOM, Dom Jackson, and his Foran CC teammate Tobias Dahlhaus joined the road.cc Podcast for an in-depth dive into the meticulous preparation that goes into writing your name in the Strava record books, and how sprinting up a hill at warp speed is a ‘fun’ break from the serious game of bike racing.

Listen to the road.cc Podcast on Apple Podcasts
Listen to the road.cc Podcast on Spotify
Listen to the road.cc Podcast on Amazon Music

Last week, just days after Q36.5 pro rider Rory Townsend knocked seven seconds off Conor McGoldrick’s long-standing KOM for the ‘official’ 2.2km-long Box Hill segment on Strava, Foran Cycling Team’s Dom Jackson lowered the bar yet again, smashing the former Irish champion’s time by another eight seconds.

The 26-year-old, who earlier this year won the prestigious Rás Tailteann stage race in Ireland, covered the 2.2km-long, steady climb in the Surrey Hills – a fixture of the 2012 Olympic road race route and a Mecca for cyclists in the south of England – in just four minutes and five seconds, at an average speed of 33.7kph, and averaging 518 watts over the entire effort. And breaking the internet in the process.

> Box Hill Strava KOM smashed (again) as cyclist conquers iconic climb at 33.7km/h

Jackson didn’t complete his KOM-busting effort alone, however – he was aided by a crack team of relay riders from Foran, who jumped in at different points on the road to keep the pace high for their designated leader.

According to Dahlhaus, who unfortunately couldn’t make it on Jackson’s big night, that team-oriented approach is indicative of amateur set-up Foran’s desire to keep things interesting in-between races.

“We have these fun targets throughout the year in between races, like when can we have these fun moments?” he tells the road.cc Podcast.

“Our team culture is all about having fun on our bikes – the racing is super serious and we really enjoy that, but there was a nice little window, the wind direction was right, and we thought we’d turn our attention to Box Hill.”

Jackson’s successful KOM raid wasn’t Foran’s first crack that week at the Box Hill crown, however. The day before Townsend ripped the road up, the team gathered at half five in the morning, in their skinsuits and adopting a “Team Sky lead out train” tactic, to give Box Hill a “full whack”. However, while snapping up a litany of lesser, shorter segments on the way up, Jackson missed out on the main goal – that 2.2km ‘official’ KOM.

> World's most competitive Strava KOM Box Hill smashed by pro cyclist Rory Townsend

After Townsend “took a huge chunk” out of McGoldrick’s time the following day, Jackson admits he spent a short spell in the pub “sulking”. But it wasn’t long before the Rás winner, presumably after finishing his pint, had concocted what he hoped would be a full-proof plan to secure Strava supremacy.

That plan meant meticulously studying the weather forecast and air pressure, and putting together a volunteer team of relay pacers, road sweepers, and DIY marshals stationed on the hill’s blind bends (Jackson says one motorist briefly stopped by his dad was fully supportive of the record attempt).

Jackson also created an 11-page document of instructions for his team of helpers, implemented a strict, day-long pre-effort diet of white rice and sweets, and rolled up his sleeves – literally, to shave his arms, for those all-important aero gains.

But plan or no plan, and hairy arms or no hairy arms, Jackson’s KOM-bagging ride was, at the end of the day, still reliant on his legs and lungs.

“I don’t think there’s much worse than a four-minute effort, it’s about as painful as an effort can get. It’s not quite a really long sprint, but you can’t settle into it. If you start to settle, you’re not going as fast as you could go,” he says of his second, successful attempt.

“The first half, I was feeling pretty good. Obviously. I was working pretty hard, but I was able to think about stuff whilst going up the hill. But the last half – my teammate Tom Springbett has one of the biggest engines in the UK and he did one minute north of 700 watts.

“And I was right behind him, dying an absolute death. I had to keep screaming at him to ‘slow down, slow down’, as I kept losing the wheel. And when I caught back up to him, he would speed up again.

“It was pretty chaotic – but what it meant was I was completely on my limit. I couldn’t have done anymore.”

Despite Jackson’s gut-busting effort, his KOM nevertheless attracted some criticism online, due to the relay tactics employed by Foran to propel Dom to the top of the Box Hill leaderboard.

“Part of me thinks they’re absolutely right, that it would be epic to have a solo effort only segment or leaderboard,” he admits. “But realistically the only segments that are going to have that are maybe steeper than about 10 per cent gradient.

“Even the ones the pros get, especially if they’re done during a race – expect maybe the ones Pogačar has – most of the time it’s an entire peloton going up these mountains, instead of a lone rider hacking away solo.

“So if there was a way for the rules to allow a separate category for solo riders, I’d love to see it, but I think the way things are at the minute, it’s fair game.”

> There's a new fastest time up Box Hill — but what's the world's hardest Strava KOM to add to your collection?

“It comes down to Strava inflation over the last five years,” Tobias agrees. “It’s bonkers. When I first started riding 12 years ago, if you went on a reasonably hard ride, you’d pick up a few.

“But suddenly now, when you’re in a mega city like London, where cycling has become more and more popular, if you’re not wearing aero socks, you’re not getting a KOM.”

The road.cc Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music, and if you have an Alexa you can just tell it to play the road.cc Podcast. It’s also embedded further up the page, so you can just press play.