6 ULTRALIGHT Hill Climb Bikes | 2025 National Hill Climb Champs

The short and brutally intense UK hill climb season is defined by bikes and tech pushed to the limit of lightness.

The 2025 UK Hill Climb National Championships, held on Bank Road in Matlock, had no shortage of stunning lightweight tech, sketchy weight-saving hacks and carbon exotica.

In this video, we take a look at the coolest, weirdest and wonderful-est tech from the day.

00:00 Jonathan Allen’s sketchy hacked eTap shifters
03:29 Arion Oates’ Cannondale Capo fixed gear
04:16 Lesley Fellows’ Trek Lexa w/ Lightweight wheels
05:04 Simon Warren’s (‘100 Climbs’) Macoc track bike
07:48 Morgan Newberry’s C5 modded Cannondale SuperSix
09:16 Finn Miller’s Viner Maxima RS 4.0

Watch the top 20 riders
→ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVWypBZIlK8

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It’s the 2025 UK Hill Climb National Championship. So, we’re going to get stuck right in with one of the wildest bikes on the hill today. Jonathan’s very DIY Focus Isalco Max. This is an absolute belter. We love it to bits. Jonathan, there’s tons going on here. What is going on with those shifters? This uh started life as my uh just summer bike. Focuses Alcoax with Shrem Red 11speed EAP. Um, but once I’d gone through all the usual hill climb weight savings of one by carbon saddle, I thought, how next can I shave a few grams? Uh, and I just decided that the best way to do that would maybe be to uh see what the lightest way I could shift would be. Uh, I wanted to go with the the Shramm Blip TT shifters, but they were quite expensive at the time I was a student. Uh, so I found some crash damaged road shifters that supposedly weren’t working. uh bought those very cheap, took them home, stripped them, found out why they weren’t shifting, resoldered a few wires, uh put a battery in, they were all up and running. So once I did that, stripped out the actual shift uh mechanisms from those, the buttons themselves, uh taped them to the bars, uh and then it’s running some very stupid lightweight AliExpress Brmpton brake levers that uh the braking is more a suggestion than anything else, but they do the job. Ergonomically then, how does the like shifting work? You know, you’ve got bullhorn style bars here. Can you actually shift gears? Uh yes. Um, sometimes I shift gears when I don’t really want to. So, couple of weeks ago at Monol in the barrier section at the top, I dropped it like three cogs down the cassette. Lost all my momentum. Um, so yeah, it’s ergonomically not ideal, I think, is the the way to describe it. But you say you saved about 150 g versus the shifters. Yes. Yeah. And that’s the main thing obviously. Completely the 150 g make all the difference on the hill today. Yes, definitely. That’s what I’m hoping. So elsewhere you’ve got some classic Are they the Planet X CNC brakes? They are. Yes. Yeah. Uh I was keeping an eye out for some of those for a while cuz Yeah. Like you say, they’re the classic lightweight but not silly expensive brakes for bikes like this. The rest of the bike is, and I mean this with kindness and love in my heart, a real charming hodge podge of different parts put together. And it’s what makes the hill climb season so entertaining. It’s a very specialist discipline requiring equally specialist bikes. But what I particularly like about this one is you say it doesn’t owe you a great deal of money. No, I reckon if I were to build it up from scratch, it would have been probably less than 1,500 quid. Um, a lot of the parts are from AliExpress or secondhand. Um, yeah, I think basically the gear cables are the only new part on it. And given some people, as we said in the video a few years ago, are riding front wheels which cost that much, this one gets a huge thumbs up from me. [Music] The Nationals is the culmination of the short and brutally intense hill climb season here in the UK, which runs from early September to the last weekend of October. This year, the Nationals was held on Bank Road in Matlock for the first time since 2016. The short and intense course climbed 101 m over just about 860 m. If you want to hear more about the course, check out our video from yesterday. And in the meantime, we’re going to get back to that exciting, super specialist, super nerdy tech. Now, this bike weighs just 4.8 kg despite the fact it was originally built as an alloy commuter bike. It is a Cannondale Capo owned by ally of the channel, Rob Bor, who’s not racing today, so instead will be ridden by Arian Oats. It of course has a very, very premium build. We have the derriigger super lightweight carbon saddle, a very lightweight bullhorn setup and THM brake and matching cranks. Now for today, Arian is going to run the same gearing as Borc in 2016 with a 3919 setup. Unlike some of his contemporaries, though, he’s going raw with no bike computer and no power meter. This is a really tasty one and a bike I always enjoy seeing at events in the Southwest. [Music] This is so much fun. This is the bike of Leslie Fellowers who raced in the veterans category. It is a Trek Lexa which is the women’s specific design version of the Trek Demani. A very humble normal alloy endurance bike. But if you look closely, you will see a very special set of wheels. Those are lightweight Obermmyers. An incredible 3ish,000B wheel set fitted to a bike which Leslie bought for £150 on eBay. Now, Leslie has raced quite a few hill climbs before, but has done so using wheels fitted with touring tires. Now, some said that was completely inappropriate for today, hence the rather tasty upgrade. The rest of the bike is exactly as it is ridden dayto-day. And I really love this. It’s such a fun upgrade for a very special event. [Applause] We’re here with Simon Warren, the man himself behind the UK’s leading books on hill climbs. Not not just the UK, of course, these days, worldwide. Well, Europewide. Europewide. But you’re back on fixed gear this year racing. How’s your season gone so far? Yeah, fair to middling. Suffered on the short ones. I’ve had, you know, I think I’ve been top three podium for the vets and over 50s for most of them, apart from Monsull and here on Bank Road. So, yeah, I’m not competitive anymore, but I just just like doing it. And why fix gear for this year in this specific climb? I think cuz I saw Bank Road, I thought, I’m no good at Bank Road. let’s do something different to keep, you know, just a focus cuz you got to keep building these focuses into your into your life. And um so I had this old track frame. Um I spent two months sanding it down. Two months literally every day a labor of love. Hours it took. There was two coats of paint on it and the bottom was very stubborn and that saved me 200 g. Worth it. Yeah. It’s like, you know, mouthful of spit. But it looks the it looks the dogs. And yeah, just something different to do. And what gear are you going to run for today’s? running a 36 up front and a 22 at the back. And that’s pretty much the biggest sprocket I could find at the back. Um, so that’s what I’m deal with. And I’ve done a dry run last week. It’s pretty much bang on, I think. Okay. Any other highlights from the build? Talk us about talk through your wheels. Um, so the front wheel is my old 2004 Zip 303, which they don’t make them like that anymore. Very, very light. Very, very narrow. Very narrow. Um, and it’s been in a million battles. Uh the back wheel, I’ve got a Royce track hub, which is very nice, and a zip rim, which is not a zip rim, which I got off eBay for for 80 quid. It is carbon. Uh pedals off the best bike. I’ve got a flight saddle here, and I’ve taken all the padding off it, uh and drilled it, so that saved a few grams. Uh cut off handlebars. Uh the levers, just one lever. And you see a lot of people running these bare plastic, but it was just digging into me hands, so I couldn’t do that. So, I put some tape on. It’s a little bit of comfort. And what everyone wants to know, what does it weigh? It weighs dead on six kilos. Yeah, pretty good for not bad. Not bad for with a with a frame that comes in and forks at 2K. Not bad. You’ve got your logo down on the down tube. Give us a plug for your books. Okay. Yeah. So, ride them all. That’s my catchphrase. Um, so if you if you buy my books, the idea is you write all the climbs in the books. And if you ride all the climbs in the first book, I send you a gold badge, which is not available in any store or online retailer. Uh, only available through me. So, I thought I’d get some stickers. It’s all about the branding. Excellent stuff. On to the next bike. Bike radar. In the company of absolute greatness, we have Morgan Newbury, bronze medalist in the C5 World Championships for the road race and silver medalist in the TT. He’s going to talk us through a really cool Canondale Super 6 Evo with a very, very nice mod. Cool. So, this is my Canale Super 6. Um, I’ve recently built it up. It’s a carbon frame, carbon bars, carbon seat post, Integra Di2, so nothing really that fancy. Um, and what’s really cool about this bike is that because I only have one hand, it’s all controlled with an outbreaker brake splitter. Um, so I’ve got hydraulic brakes all on one lever. And how does that actually like work in practice dayto-day for you then? You just kind of like an adjuster you said on that. Yeah. So, it works amazingly. Like the brakes are amazing, but as the brakes wear, the pads wear down a bit. It has a little adjuster on it that you can just um turn and uh bring the pistons a bit closer together and yeah, just the brakes work so well. And given you live here in the Peak District, it’s a fair test of whether braking actually works or not. I can promise you I have really tested these brakes to the absolute limits. So, how are you feeling for today? How do you think you’re going to get on? I’m really excited about doing bank road today. I did it last weekend. Um, I’m just hoping to like feel strong. Um, I’m not too bothered about the time. U, but I just would love to have a great race and I think the crowds are going to be a little bit scary. Well, as a local, I’m sure you’re going to be getting a huge cheer and no bigger cheer than from us here at Bike Raider. Thank you for showing us your bike. Very cool stuff. [Music] All right, check this out. This is the bike of 14-year-old Finn Miller, and it is so cool. One of the nicest looking bikes on the hill. Finn, talk us through this very tasty machine. So, it’s a Viner Maxima 4.0. Frame originally weighed about 850 g. 950. I got down to about 790 after taking the paint off. How long did it take you to take the paint off? Ages. My dad’s complained. Now, I didn’t do most of it, but I was at school, so I couldn’t really. That’s a fair excuse if you ask me. Um, so talk us through the build. What kind of like brought down the weight for this specific one? Chopped down the bars, obviously. Mhm. Got some got of Alex best parts saddle. There’s tenner and it weighs 91 g. You described the brakes as one of your personal highlights. I think you actually called them uphill brakes. That’s absolutely useless for anything other than riding uphill. They’re like that’s it. They don’t work. Now, of course, you’ve had plenty people sign the frame. Who have you managed to grab today? Got Andy Feather. He’s on it. Got Son Warren. Oh, who else? Harry McFarland. All the GCN boys. Ah, we don’t care about that. But of course, what we all want to know, what does it weigh? It’s 5.7 kilos. Not bad. And what I particularly like, Spin told us this bike probably cost about 950ish pounds, which for such a tasty looking specialized bike, that’s excellent. We’re at the finish line. Seeing lots of juniors being a little bit sick over there. How are you feeling? Uh, dead. Tired. Cold. Glad the season’s over. No. Wish there was more races. That’s what we like to hear. [Music] What an incredible day. I absolutely love the nationals. It is a professional and personal highlight for me. I adore this day out every single year. If you enjoyed that, be sure to check out our other video bringing you the best of the racing action from the top 20 riders this year. And if you’re looking for even more, head to bike.com for more hill climb tech action.