From Monsal glory to Porlock doubts: Gabe Dellar’s race of truth
Gabe Dellar won Monsal less than three seconds outside Malcolm Elliott’s 1981 record, at the end of the best road season of his career with RideRevolution Coaching CT. He heads to the National Hill Climb Championships on Porlock convinced the course is too long for him to win.
Five days after he won the Monsal Hill Climb, Gabe Dellar’s social media accounts were still busy. More images from the climb to Monsal Head appeared by the hour, a near blow-by-blow stream for a small but enthusiastic hill climb scene doing its utmost to turn the Wiltshire rider’s open-jawed grimace and swinging, upright style into memes. Among them was a quieter photograph with Malcolm Elliott: a reminder of what the 25-year-old had done in 76.7 seconds that afternoon, threatening a course record that has stood since 1981, and of the place hill climbing still holds in British cycling.
“I mean, I was pretty surprised to win it,” a buoyant Dellar admits. He crossed the line in 1:16.7, less than three seconds outside Elliott’s 1981 benchmark, beating Ben Millar of Nopinz RT and National Hill Climb Championship medallists Andy Nichols and Kieran Wynne-Cattanach, and laying down a marker three weeks before the season-defining National Championships.
I’ve won six from six hill climbs so far this season, so it’s going better than I could have predicted
“I’ve won six from six hill climbs so far this season, so it’s going better than I could have predicted,” he continues. The day after this interview, on Saturday 10 October, he took his self-converted campervan to Yorkshire and won again at Jackson Bridge, extending a run that was broken only on Snake Pass on Sunday 11 October. There, Ed Laverack, the 2019 national champion, and the prodigiously talented junior Ezra Bateman were the only riders to go quicker than Dellar on the A57.
The Snake Pass event was in many ways a dress rehearsal for the National Championships and drew one of the strongest fields of the season. At 5.3 kilometres and a steady 6 per cent or so, it is one of the few hill climbs in Britain that resembles the Porlock Toll Road, a 6.6-kilometre (4.1-mile) climb that averages a shade over 5 per cent.
Image: Martin House
“I think it’s not a course that I will thrive on, for sure,” Dellar says of the Exmoor climb, which hosts the National Championships for the first time on Sunday 25 October. He forecasts a more open race for the title than the previous two editions, in both of which he finished 5th.
“I think it’s a lot less suited to the specialists, if you want to call them that. I think the winner will still come from the sort of hill climb scene, but I think it opens it up a lot more to those people, just basically with, you know, the biggest threshold, which isn’t me,” he says.
I think the winner will still come from the sort of hill climb scene, but I think it opens it up a lot more to those people, just basically with, you know, the biggest threshold
It is a somewhat surprising verdict from a rider coming off his best road season to date: a final-stage solo win and the points jersey at the Rás Mumhan in April, a first National A podium at the Tour of the Reservoir in June, and 8th overall at the Three Days of Cherbourg in September.
“I’m really looking forward to the Nationals, and it’s probably my favourite race of the year, every year. But, once I saw how long the course was, I knew that I couldn’t win it,” Dellar reiterates. To prepare, he cut his training hours in half to focus on the short, sharp efforts most hill climbs demand.
“Obviously Monsal [was] the biggest target. That went perfectly to plan. So I’ve basically been training for those sort of efforts, and now the Nationals, but not that much can really change in two weeks,” he notes.
“I think it’s pretty easy to roughly predict the sort of time you’re going to do [on Porlock]. I’ve recced the climb and it’s a dead steady gradient, basically a 14-minute power test for the male winner.
Image: Beard on a Bike
“Everyone’s going to know roughly what they can do, so I think there’s not a lot else you can do other than just ride to your power, and the results will be what they’ll be. With the shorter ones, there’s just so much more to it, in terms of what could happen on the day because the margins are so tight, and I think also shorter ones allow slightly bigger riders like myself to enter the equation.
“Over 14 minutes, I mean, that really is playing into the hands of just whoever has the highest w/kg threshold, basically. People are saying it could be like a testers’ type of course, but I think it’s still short enough and steep enough that it will go to someone who’s from the hill climb scene.”
Easter in Kerry
Dellar bills the Championships as “the race of truth”. They bring the curtain down on a season that began at the Peak 2 Day in March, and in which he has stepped up from a rider consistent at National B level to a genuine contender for the top step of the podium in the National Road Series and beyond.
“I would like to think there’s more to come,” he says, when asked whether 2026 was the year he reached his potential. He points out that he came to the sport late, in his final year of university, and that the year as a whole was “a mixed [one], with lots of ups and downs”. It started perfectly, at the Rás Mumhan, one of Ireland’s two major stage races, over the Easter weekend.
Jake said to me on the drive in, ‘You’re obviously strong enough to ride away on the final circuit and go solo,’ and I sort of like laughed
“That was huge,” he says. “I mean, it was five stages, and I got a better result five times in a row. I podiumed the last three days, so I was obviously in the form of my life. But even on the final morning—it’s a technical circuit to finish, and Jake [Hales, the RideRevolution team manager] said to me on the drive in, ‘You’re obviously strong enough to ride away on the final circuit and go solo,’ and I sort of like laughed, but he was like, ‘No, trust me, just try it’—and I did, and I stayed away. I think from then on you believe in yourself a lot more, don’t you?”
After soaking up the atmosphere in Killorglin, “the best stage to win” in Dellar’s opinion, he headed home in search of National A success, his confidence at an all-time high.
Image: Chris Potts
“You know [the Rás Mumhan], it’s not a crazy high-level race, but it’s on par with the [National Road Series] in the UK. That was my gold standard aim for this year,” he says.
Ups and downs
Then, in April, a crash on a training ride derailed his season. It left his partner, Grace Reynolds, in hospital, needing help to walk and facing months of rehabilitation once she was released. Dellar was with her when it happened.
“She was in hospital for a long time, and I didn’t really train for a good couple of weeks. After that, I basically forgot how to ride in a bunch, it completely knocked my confidence,” he admits.
“I crashed out of Lincoln shortly after, and I basically had three months of, like I would say, really lacking results, just largely because of that.”
The exception came at the Tour of the Reservoir in June, where he came close to the National A win he had set his sights on. He first describes his second place as a “fluke”.
“I was like the least fit of any of the National As I’d been to all year, and I just actually managed to read the race right.
“My legs did that one, so yeah, I was actually pretty happy with that,” he eventually reconsiders. Only Danylo Riwnyj, whom Dellar describes as “the best domestic rider this year”, finished ahead of him.
“I’m hoping next year I can do more of reading the race, you know, continue to improve that aspect, and then hopefully the results will do the talking. I’d like to think there’s still more to come, hopefully,” he says.
Dellar told The British Continental that he will stay with RideRevolution Coaching CT for a second season, after forming part of a strong squad that topped the 2026 team rankings. The team is undergoing major changes for next season as it pursues UCI Continental status in 2028.
It’s going to become a lot more like a development squad as a bit of a transition year, so I’ll definitely be the oldest on the tier one [part] of the team, so I’m going to take on a bit of like a different role
“It’s going to become a lot more like a development squad as a bit of a transition year, so I’ll definitely be the oldest on the tier one [part] of the team, so I’m going to take on a bit of like a different role, I think, in that respect—still going for my own results, but you know, picking and choosing a little bit which races I do,” he explains.
“I’m just going to do the races I enjoy. I did the crit series this year. That was fun—I wasn’t very good at it, I got like one top ten, but I’ll probably give that another go. Then the National Road Series, and then it depends what the team want with the international stuff, but I’ll sort of be led by them, really,” he says, having clocked up the most international race days of any rider on the squad this year.
Before any of that, Dellar has one date left in 2026: the National Hill Climb Championships on Porlock on Sunday 25 October. It is a race he may not enjoy at the time but will come to savour, particularly if he can break out of the underdog role he has set himself and end his run of 5th places. The viral memes are waiting.
Five days after he won the Monsal Hill Climb, Gabe Dellar’s social media accounts were still busy. More images from the climb to Monsal Head appeared by the hour, a near blow-by-blow stream for a small but enthusiastic hill climb scene doing its utmost to turn the Wiltshire rider’s open-jawed grimace and swinging, upright style into memes. Among them was a quieter photograph with Malcolm Elliott: a reminder of what the 25-year-old had done in 76.7 seconds that afternoon, threatening a course record that has stood since 1981, and of the place hill climbing still holds in British cycling.
“I mean, I was pretty surprised to win it,” a buoyant Dellar admits. He crossed the line in 1:16.7, less than three seconds outside Elliott’s 1981 benchmark, beating Ben Millar of Nopinz RT and National Hill Climb Championship medallists Andy Nichols and Kieran Wynne-Cattanach, and laying down a marker three weeks before the season-defining National Championships.
“I’ve won six from six hill climbs so far this season, so it’s going better than I could have predicted,” he continues. The day after this interview, on Saturday 10 October, he took his self-converted campervan to Yorkshire and won again at Jackson Bridge, extending a run that was broken only on Snake Pass on Sunday 11 October. There, Ed Laverack, the 2019 national champion, and the prodigiously talented junior Ezra Bateman were the only riders to go quicker than Dellar on the A57.
The Snake Pass event was in many ways a dress rehearsal for the National Championships and drew one of the strongest fields of the season. At 5.3 kilometres and a steady 6 per cent or so, it is one of the few hill climbs in Britain that resembles the Porlock Toll Road, a 6.6-kilometre (4.1-mile) climb that averages a shade over 5 per cent.
“I think it’s not a course that I will thrive on, for sure,” Dellar says of the Exmoor climb, which hosts the National Championships for the first time on Sunday 25 October. He forecasts a more open race for the title than the previous two editions, in both of which he finished 5th.
“I think it’s a lot less suited to the specialists, if you want to call them that. I think the winner will still come from the sort of hill climb scene, but I think it opens it up a lot more to those people, just basically with, you know, the biggest threshold, which isn’t me,” he says.
It is a somewhat surprising verdict from a rider coming off his best road season to date: a final-stage solo win and the points jersey at the Rás Mumhan in April, a first National A podium at the Tour of the Reservoir in June, and 8th overall at the Three Days of Cherbourg in September.
“I’m really looking forward to the Nationals, and it’s probably my favourite race of the year, every year. But, once I saw how long the course was, I knew that I couldn’t win it,” Dellar reiterates. To prepare, he cut his training hours in half to focus on the short, sharp efforts most hill climbs demand.
“Obviously Monsal [was] the biggest target. That went perfectly to plan. So I’ve basically been training for those sort of efforts, and now the Nationals, but not that much can really change in two weeks,” he notes.
“I think it’s pretty easy to roughly predict the sort of time you’re going to do [on Porlock]. I’ve recced the climb and it’s a dead steady gradient, basically a 14-minute power test for the male winner.
“Everyone’s going to know roughly what they can do, so I think there’s not a lot else you can do other than just ride to your power, and the results will be what they’ll be. With the shorter ones, there’s just so much more to it, in terms of what could happen on the day because the margins are so tight, and I think also shorter ones allow slightly bigger riders like myself to enter the equation.
“Over 14 minutes, I mean, that really is playing into the hands of just whoever has the highest w/kg threshold, basically. People are saying it could be like a testers’ type of course, but I think it’s still short enough and steep enough that it will go to someone who’s from the hill climb scene.”
Easter in Kerry
Dellar bills the Championships as “the race of truth”. They bring the curtain down on a season that began at the Peak 2 Day in March, and in which he has stepped up from a rider consistent at National B level to a genuine contender for the top step of the podium in the National Road Series and beyond.
“I would like to think there’s more to come,” he says, when asked whether 2026 was the year he reached his potential. He points out that he came to the sport late, in his final year of university, and that the year as a whole was “a mixed [one], with lots of ups and downs”. It started perfectly, at the Rás Mumhan, one of Ireland’s two major stage races, over the Easter weekend.
“That was huge,” he says. “I mean, it was five stages, and I got a better result five times in a row. I podiumed the last three days, so I was obviously in the form of my life. But even on the final morning—it’s a technical circuit to finish, and Jake [Hales, the RideRevolution team manager] said to me on the drive in, ‘You’re obviously strong enough to ride away on the final circuit and go solo,’ and I sort of like laughed, but he was like, ‘No, trust me, just try it’—and I did, and I stayed away. I think from then on you believe in yourself a lot more, don’t you?”
After soaking up the atmosphere in Killorglin, “the best stage to win” in Dellar’s opinion, he headed home in search of National A success, his confidence at an all-time high.
“You know [the Rás Mumhan], it’s not a crazy high-level race, but it’s on par with the [National Road Series] in the UK. That was my gold standard aim for this year,” he says.
Ups and downs
Then, in April, a crash on a training ride derailed his season. It left his partner, Grace Reynolds, in hospital, needing help to walk and facing months of rehabilitation once she was released. Dellar was with her when it happened.
“She was in hospital for a long time, and I didn’t really train for a good couple of weeks. After that, I basically forgot how to ride in a bunch, it completely knocked my confidence,” he admits.
“I crashed out of Lincoln shortly after, and I basically had three months of, like I would say, really lacking results, just largely because of that.”
The exception came at the Tour of the Reservoir in June, where he came close to the National A win he had set his sights on. He first describes his second place as a “fluke”.
“I was like the least fit of any of the National As I’d been to all year, and I just actually managed to read the race right.
“My legs did that one, so yeah, I was actually pretty happy with that,” he eventually reconsiders. Only Danylo Riwnyj, whom Dellar describes as “the best domestic rider this year”, finished ahead of him.
“I’m hoping next year I can do more of reading the race, you know, continue to improve that aspect, and then hopefully the results will do the talking. I’d like to think there’s still more to come, hopefully,” he says.
Those lean summer months had another strand. In June, Dellar launched a bid to save the Victor Berlemont Trophy, hoping to stage it on its traditional date of 30 August at Woodcote, before British Cycling ruled out a 2026 edition and pointed instead to a return in 2027.
A different role in 2027
Dellar told The British Continental that he will stay with RideRevolution Coaching CT for a second season, after forming part of a strong squad that topped the 2026 team rankings. The team is undergoing major changes for next season as it pursues UCI Continental status in 2028.
“It’s going to become a lot more like a development squad as a bit of a transition year, so I’ll definitely be the oldest on the tier one [part] of the team, so I’m going to take on a bit of like a different role, I think, in that respect—still going for my own results, but you know, picking and choosing a little bit which races I do,” he explains.
“I’m just going to do the races I enjoy. I did the crit series this year. That was fun—I wasn’t very good at it, I got like one top ten, but I’ll probably give that another go. Then the National Road Series, and then it depends what the team want with the international stuff, but I’ll sort of be led by them, really,” he says, having clocked up the most international race days of any rider on the squad this year.
Before any of that, Dellar has one date left in 2026: the National Hill Climb Championships on Porlock on Sunday 25 October. It is a race he may not enjoy at the time but will come to savour, particularly if he can break out of the underdog role he has set himself and end his run of 5th places. The viral memes are waiting.
Featured image: Anthony Wood
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