A new Strava KOM has been set on Box Hill in Surrey – one of the world's most competitive segments – and now the team tactics and power numbers behind the 4-minute, 2-second ride have been revealed.
Assisted by his Raptor Factory Racing team, Dylan Hicks averaged 34.2kph with an average power of 469 watts up the iconic climb’s slopes. That’s 3 seconds faster than the previous Strava KOM set by Dom Jackson in September last year. Jackson was aided by his Foran CC team-mates and took the record off of Rory Townsend of Q36.5 Pro Cycling.
With an average gradient of just 5.2 per cent and at only 2.29km long, Box Hill, which featured in the 2012 Olympic road race and is a popular climb on Zwift, is far from being a difficult climb. But with 1.5 million attempts by over 158,000 people on Strava, it’s still one of the most competitive, which makes teamwork and planning essential to grabbing the KOM.
So how did Hicks and Raptor Factory Racing do it? Well, team rider Tom Heal has released a video on YouTube explaining what went into the attempt, from strategy and recceing the climb to the power numbers that were required to take the KOM.
Corner sweeping
In the video, Heal explains how the team headed to Box Hill the day before the actual record attempt to put their strategy to the test.
Heal explains that one of the first things the team had to figure out was how to take the tricky corner at the bottom of the climb, which is slightly off camber and practically a 90-degree turn.
With the team trying to take the corner at full speed, they had a brush on hand to sweep the road, to get rid of any loose grit and gravel.
Heal explains that the team practiced going into the corner four times, with Dylan Hicks at the back of the line, ready to be carried all the way up the hill, before finishing the job at the top of the climb.
On their reconnaissance day, Heal says the team tried an almost full-gas effort up the climb, where Hicks set a time of 4 min 18 secs.
Two real attempts and some massive power numbers
On the day of the attempt proper, Heal says the team were at Box Hill by 6.30am to avoid any traffic, and that they tried two attempts up the climb.
Heal says the first attempt saw the team set a time that was four seconds off the KOM, which he says was a “kick in the teeth” for the team.
Twenty minutes later and the group of six tried again with a tweak in their strategy.
Waller, the first man to lead the team, set a personal one-minute power record of 718 watts and gained time over the previous record set by Jackson and the Foran CC team on the first section of the climb.
But Heal explains that they then lost time over the previous KOM holder after the first hairpin, where Sam LJ dropped in and rode for another minute with an average power of 446 watts. Heal says that if LJ’s power was normalised it would be “a lot higher.”
The team managed to pull the time back on the second hairpin, making it “even stevens”.
Rowan Baker then took over and averaged 550 watts on the first section of Box Hill’s long straight.
After Baker, Alex Franks was left to pull Hicks to the final hairpin and he averaged 480 watts for roughly 3 minutes.
Heal says that by the mid-point of the straight, the team had lost time over Floran CC again, but by the final hairpin they managed to claw it back.
Then, in the final 200m to the finish line of the Strava segment, Hicks put 3 seconds into Jackson’s time, averaging 707 watts for the final 11 seconds, and roughly 7.5 watts-per-kg over the attempt.
Heal says Hicks’ performance was, “Just insane, and shows how fast he is on a hill finish”.
“We could have probably gone even faster in sections,” Heal says. “And I think there are plans to go back and try and get under 4 [minutes] – which I think can be easily done.”
