'I got the dreaded uh-oh email from Strava... he took my KOM by 15 seconds': Phil Gaimon wins battle over world's hardest segment

Retired pro cyclist Phil Gaimon has reclaimed the Strava KOM crown on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, an 89.5km climb considered to be the toughest in the world. 

The 38-year-old uploaded his Strava file on Tuesday, completing the segment in four hours, 52 minutes and 55 seconds, and shaving over six minutes off the previous best time, held by Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale rider Larry Warbasse. 

Gaimon averaged 18.3km/h for the segment, and held 249 watts over his five-hour effort. 

In a video posted to his YouTube channel, the American described Mauna Kea as “completely insane”. 

The volcano climb begins at sea level and tops out at 4,214 metres altitude. It has a deceptive average gradient of 4.7%, due to a flat section in the middle, but averages 9% over the final 21km. 

“You climb away to 11,000ft then it turns to dirt for 10km,” Gaimon said. “The last bit is paved, but it’s insanely steep.” 

Gaimon originally set the KOM for the mammoth climb back in 2016, when he became the first person to complete it in under five hours. His record stood for seven years, before Warbasse bettered it by just 15 seconds at the end of 2023.

On Instagram, Gaimon wrote that the volcano “gave [him] a second act”, and thanked Warbasse for “kicking [him] in the butt to make it happen”. 

“Over Christmas, I got the dreaded uh-oh email from Strava, where my friend Larry Warbasse had taken my KOM,” he said in his YouTube video, recorded before the KOM assault. “I’m sure Larry was treating it about the same way I was in 2016. He had some Instagram video of it, he was enjoying himself, he was going on the exploration. But he took my KOM by 15 seconds. A five-hour KOM, he got by 15 seconds.

“Looking back at my ride, I know 100 places where I can get 15 seconds back.” 

Gaimon rode a Factor O2 VAM road bike with rim brakes, and arranged to swap to a gravel bike for the dirt path section. He also planned to not take as many breaks as he did during his original KOM, in which he stopped to eat an energy bar, and took a nature break at the visitor’s centre.  

The American holds a special affinity with Mauna Kea, the climb he credits with kick-starting his YouTube channel, which now has 124,000 subscribers.