Simon Warren might be best known as the author of the 100 Climbs series, but he raced seriously throughout the 1990s and 2000s, competing in time trials, track and road races, and, of course, hill climbs.
So what does the UK’s foremost expert on cycling up hills ride for the National Championships?
This year, Warren went for something a little different: a fixed-gear that’s been through multiple reincarnations over the two decades he’s owned it.
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Long before it became a stripped-back hill climb machine, it was ridden around the streets of London.
As Warren recalled on Instagram: "In the early 2000s, a craze hit the streets of London – the fashionable kids started riding fixed wheel bikes.
"As an unfashionable kid, my fixed wheel had always been a key part of my identity, and when I moved to London in the mid ‘90s, it was only couriers and racing cyclists who rode one. All of a sudden, the hipsters rocked up on beautiful Colnagos with NJS components and disc wheels. The fact they’d assimilated my culture made me far angrier than was healthy."
Determined not to be outdone, Warren set out to build something even more eye-catching: "Refusing to be beaten, I set out to build a bike that would turn heads.
Decked out in a pair of Spinergy’s and traditional bend track drops, the bike is about as 2000s as a street fixie could get.
However, the Monoc soon found its true home on the boards. "It was far too good for the streets, so one night I took it down to Herne Hill for track league – and that’s what started me racing again [after an injury].
"I didn’t miss a track league for ten years."
Turning the bike into a hill climb bike was a true labour of love: "I spent two solid weeks painstakingly removing two layers of paint, then using mostly what I could find in the workshop, built a fixed gear hill climb bike."
Fixed gear bikes are a common sight at hill climbs but, despite being synonymous with climbing, Warren admits he’s only raced fixed at a hill climb once before – back in 2004.
"I have raced hill climbs on a fixed before, back in 2004 when it’s all I had, winning my club hill climb then grinding to a halt at the Catford and Bec because my gear was just too big and I didn’t have the legs," he wrote on Instagram.
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He opted for a 36×22t gearing for Bank Road. That might sound punchy, but Warren says Matt Clinton won the 2008 Nationals on a 42×20t on the same course – so Warren’s setup sits well below that.
The bike’s back wheel combines a 28h Royce track hub and an £80 "fake Zipp" carbon rim Warren spotted on eBay: "It said Zipp, so I hit Buy It Now. Only when I got it out of the box did I realise it definitely wasn’t a Zipp rim in any shape or form – but it was £80 for a carbon rim!"
It’s paired with a 22mm Continental Sprinter tubular.
The front wheel, an old Zipp 303 from his road racing days, is now reserved purely for hill climbs. It’s fitted with a 19mm Tufo S3 Lite tubular: "[I know] the rolling resistance of this is terrible, but it’s light."
A Reynolds Onzo fork – "still the most beautiful fork I have ever owned," he wrote – is matched to an Easton EA50 stem, cut-down Easton EA70 bars, and gutted Campagnolo Chorus levers padded for comfort.
A Token Accura CNC brake, USE seatpost, and a stripped and drilled Selle Italia Flite TT saddle complete the build.
"It’s not light at 5.98kg," Warren noted, "but has been a fun project to put together."
From its storied origins to a new lease of life on one of the UK’s toughest climbs, Warren’s Monoc shows that even Britain’s best-known hill climb expert still finds joy in digging out an old frame, bolting on a few spares, and seeing how far the addictive simplicity of a fixed gear can take him.
