[Closed] Llandegla Hill Climb, Three in One. Possible?

As in the start of the trail center 3 mile climb? No chance. Not least because you wouldn't want to be flying down the fireroad against the flow of traffic (inc families, kids, noobs etc) and there's a lot of corners near the bottom you wouldn't want to be hitting at 30mph, even on a clear track edit: didnt know there was a separate fireroad.

12 mins to get up that is properly hauling too, I reckon most folk (me included. Even at my fittest, I was hovering around 20 mins) couldn't get up it in 16 from a fresh start, let alone 17 and 18 the 2nd and 3rd.

Depends how quick you are for a plump IT manager. Even your 'warm down' 🙂 of 18 minutes for the 'three mile climb' puts you in the top 3% of times and requires an uphill pace of over 10mph.

My best after a couple of visits was 21.40, and I don't remember that being at pootle pace, and is still in the top 20% of times.

In other words, maybe aim for 2 reps in 45 minutes!

No chance, unless you can do the climb in less than 15 min every time, I reckon.

You could go back down the fire road rather than down the climb, I think the fire road is slightly shorter than the official climb.

Just to be clear, I was indeed planning to descend the direct fire road. ( the tow up track as anyone with kids will know it) Descending the climb itself at speed would indeed put me firmly in the tool category.

But judging by the other replies, it looks like my keyboard is once again writing cheques my body can't cash, so I'll have to think of a different plan.

...Llandegla Bruise perhaps ( black and blue, red and green)

I couldn't, but then my fastest up there is only 20:22. I am fat though.

I did 4 laps up there a while back. 3 mile climb on the first 3 laps were all within about 30 secs (just under 21 mins) and the 4th a minute slower. I wouldn't want to go down the fireroad though 🙂

Full red/black loop in an hour? That's got to be doable (haven't checked!)

A mate has done each full course (red + all the black options, red, blue, green) in a single sitting, give that a whirl?

Not a chance unless you are extremely fit or on an e-bike! As a relatively fit 20-something, my PB up there is around 17 and half minutes in summer with a slight tailwind. Generally hover around 18-20 minutes as it can get busy on weekends and traffic can have a big impact. Even if I could match my PB 3 times in a row it would give me just 2 and half minutes to get back down again and that ain't happening!

A few of us from our Wednesday night ride group did a lap of the blue with a slight detour to the last section of the red and got round in 50 minutes last night and riding solo I've done a black/red mash up in about an hour and 15 minutes with a few short stops to refuel and take a breather. Doing a full red in an hour would be manageable I imagine.

I normally rest for about 20 mins while making the climb!

My PB for the 3-mile climb is 20 mins, which isn’t a bad time according to the Strava rankings but that’s definitely wouldn’t be good enough for 3 times up and down in an hour. Mind you I’m not a spring chicken so, it depends how fit you are.:-)

Sounds a bit much theG - looking at the times I think you'd need to be well into decent XC racer territory to get that under an hour. Plus it's ****g pointless 🙂

A full lap with all the black bits sounds like a good time challenge, never tried it full on but it feels like it would be a fair bit over an hour for the majority. Try it and see?

Full red/black loop in an hour? That’s got to be doable (haven’t checked!)

On a quiet dry day, I reckon it's more than doable. My PR for the full red is about 53mins and I'm not that quick.

Back to the original question, my PR for the 3 mile climb is 15:49 and that puts me at top 0.712% (205th out of 28,805) and I don't think I could do 3 in an hour even bombing straight back down the fire road.

A lot of the fastest times have also been set a few years ago, KOM is 2011, when it was one helluva lot smoother and tree lined so the wind didn't effect it too much.

My pb up there is 19.12 which puts me about 8,000 out of about 33,000 according to Strava, can’t ever remember trying to gun it. But it was last time I rode there and the weather was horrendous so maybe trying To get on with the ride

Try it on a road bike, slip streaming an ebike ?

Right vermin. I am officially da man.
Went to llandgla today and completely obliterated that first climb. Even if I say so myself, I completely rocked.....

Didn't take a second more than 27 minutes car park to top berm. 🙄🙄☺So perhaps the question should be changed to "2 Llandegla Hill climbs in an hour"

TBF I had number two son with me, but I can't see me doubling that pace any time soon.

Was going to have another go afterwards but we had such an excellent time on the route that I felt like a bit of a heel leaving him in the car. So we just went and tried to learn to jump instead. He learned, I failed.

Excellent day, but definitely no nearer to a 3 in 1.

👌

Well I can feel smug having smashed out 23:43 on Friday 😉 there are certainly a few bits to make up on it for me if I was on the old 29r XC bike rather than the 160mm Enduro bike but not 10 mins!!
Certainly an interesting climb to race up though (technically), plenty of flats and dips to make speed through and some corners that seem to sap pedalling or catch you on the exits.

This inspired me to check my best time on it - 29 mins Lol! Though I’ve always just seen that climb as an opportunity to potter along and consider how awesome I will be on the descent. Annoyingly I suspect next time I do it I will have it in my head that I have to go for it!

I'm just wondering, why? Is the OP after a challenge in which case pretty well any similar (and quieter) forestry road climb would suffice?

The only time I've been to Llandegla was before I started using Strava so I've no idea how quickly or slowly I managed that initial climb. Usually with climbs on Strava I'll add between 25 & 50% to the KOM time and I'll be in that ballpark, sometimes I'm in the top ten, sometimes I'm in the bottom third.

Strava segment explore doesn't show it so I don't know what the elevation gain is but three times up and two down comes to fifteen miles, assuming the return descent is of similar length. Looking at my times on sort of similar climbs in the Dales, Cam High Road from Bainbridge for example, there's no way I could do it.

I’m just wondering, why?

"Because it's there". Can't recall who said it, but I'm sure you can.

No good reason really. Actually, there is a reason if I think about it.... the reason is that I know I can't do it and it'd be fun to set a difficult challenge
No point in setting a challenge that's easily achievable.
Though equally I'd have to admit that there's no point in setting a challenge that's impossible. Which this one does appear to be, for me.

Hmmm. 24;24;28. So absolutely nowhere near 🙂 TBF the wind was horrendous today but even so I'm pretty appalled I only cut three minutes off my son's time. Ho hum.

No idea about the descent timing as I took tomhoward's advice and did the black and red between hill climbs, and then the blue and green afterwards. Good to get it done eventually. For the last lap couldn't decide whether to bail to get some food or keep going in a vain attempt to get under four hours. Went for brief food and took 4:05. The 53 minute Red mentioned above has fully gasted my flabber TBH. Must try harder.

Do it in summer, will be easier 🙂

Will there be less snow ? 😉

I'd like to think so 🙂