While some hill climb bikes fall into the weird and wonderful category many more are just older machines, retired from regular use and adapted for a new life. A bike that can no longer keep up with the contemporary and the cutting edge on the flat can still serve a purpose in this very specific arena, where competitors race - usually solo and against the clock - on an almost always entirely positive gradient. In fact, some of the attributes which make it outdated are beneficial when viewed through the prism of going as fast as you can uphill.
Lee Ager’s Canyon CF SLX is a case in point. It started life in 2013 as his first ‘good’ road bike. It served him well for almost a decade before being replaced with something new and shiny. But thanks to its lightweight carbon frame, rather than sell it on, he chose to begin modifying it ahead of the 2022 hill climb season.
Fast forward another two years and Ager’s 54cm CF SLX bares little resemblance to its former self. The Shimano Dura-Ace crank arms are now set up as a 1x, using a Wolf Tooth 36t chainring paired with a 10-speed 11-28 cassette. The matching shifters remain but are attached to a pair of bars that have attained the hallmark of many a hill climb rig.
“My dad had some spare handlebars so I took them and cut the ends off,” says Ager. “And there’s no bar tape.”
At the time of purchase, the CF SLX was a thoroughly modern road bike, equipped with rim brakes like all of its contemporaries. While it’s their disc equivalents that are now omnipresent, the fact that the rim brake standard makes for a lighter bike means they are commonplace at a hill race. Ager has opted to replace the Dura-Ace originals with some ‘internet special’ calipers that he says are around 100g lighter.
Wheels are another area that benefit from being rim rather than disc; there’s no need for rotors, which adds weight as do the hubs they need to attach to. And it’s the wheelset where Ager has spent big to save some grams.
“The only big-ticket item of the build was the ZED HC String Spoke wheels, which come in at 830g a pair,” he says. It’s such a low figure that it leaves you searching for another superlative other than featherweight. Ager has shod the hoops with a 23mm tubular Vittoria Corsa speed tyre on the front and a 25mm G2.0 on the rear.
The finishing kit sees the Canyon seat post fitted to the original bike still in play. However, it’s now got what Ager describes as a “100g Amazon special” saddle attached to it. The stem is Ritchey and the pedals are Favero’s power meter model, Assomia.
It adds up to a bike that weighs just 5.45kg. It’s an impressive number given that the UCI limit for WorldTour bikes is currently 6.8kg. And more so when you consider that Ager hasn’t spent a fortune to get there either. But the very nature of hill climb events and the bikes that help propel the participants up them is that you can always aspire to be lighter, so expect this Canyon CF SLX to continue its metamorphosis.
“It’s a work in progress and I’ve still plenty of room to get the grams off,” says Ager. “For 2025 I might get sanding!”
