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British hill climbing sensation Illi Gardner spent her holiday in the Dolomites last week scooping up legendary Strava QOMs.
The 24-year-old became the fastest woman ever to ride Italy’s Passo dello Stelvio, Passo Giau and Monte Zoncolan, beating a six-year-old record on the latter, set by former world champion Annemiek van Vleuten, by almost a minute and a half.
Gardner’s new Stelvio record is also almost two minutes faster than the previous, while she bettered the Giau benchmark by over four minutes.
“It was a bit crazy,” she told Cycling Weekly. “It was really good, obviously, an amazing week of riding.”
A seasoned QOM hunter, holding over 9,000 crowns on Strava, Gardner said her trip to the Dolomites was a late-summer holiday. “A hard holiday,” she clarified. “I didn’t plan the trip super far in advance. It was more of just a nice break, and I didn’t really know how my fitness would be either after a few months of being in the UK and not riding long climbs.
“[I went] mainly just to ride the climbs,” Gardner continued, adding that taking the QOMs wasn’t the purpose of the trip. “I always like giving it my best shot and riding hard. You can’t base everything off QOMs, because there’s more to riding than just that. I wanted to go as hard as I could basically up those climbs.”
“I did the Stelvio the first day we got there, which was definitely the right decision because the weather got a lot worse. It was freezing and snowing when we made it up there.
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“I tried to do Zoncolan the next day, but I was pretty cooked from Stelvio. It was actually really hot that day and I set off way too hard. It just wasn’t a great experience. I was hoping to give it another shot later in the trio, if things worked out. I think I did Giau the next day, and then [Monte] Grappa, and was able to go back to Zoncolan.”
A regular feature in the Giro d’Italia route, the Monte Zoncolan is considered one of the toughest climbs in cycling. Its official Strava segment is only 7.7km long, but carries a punishing average gradient of 14.2%, and gains 1,039m in altitude.
“I definitely had to dig the deepest on that one,” Gardner said. “The first time I rode it, I think I was about a minute and a bit slower than [Van Vleuten’s] time. I knew that if I did the best ride I could do, then I had a chance of getting it. That one was really difficult. Obviously comparing a race to just doing [the climb] is always a bit different, but I was pretty happy with that one.”
Having previously raced in British domestic scene, Gardner gave up bunch racing in 2021 because she “didn’t really like it“. She now works as a visual effects artist, and rides up mountains in her spare time. Her achievements include the women’s Everesting record, and the most expansive trophy cabinet on Strava, counting the iconic French climbs of Mont Ventoux, the Col du Galibier and Alpe d’Huez. Her Alpe d’Huez record stands, despite Demi Vollering, Kasia Niewiadoma and the Tour de France Femmes peloton racing hard up it last month.
While she was in the Dolomites, Gardner also set a new QOM on the 18km-long Monte Grappa. But, she laughed, “someone keeps flagging it”.
The 24-year-old’s next target is defending her National Hill Climb Championships title in Northumberland next month. This year’s course is short – 1.5km in length – which doesn’t play to Gardner’s endurance strengths. “It’s a bit less of an exciting climb this year. I’m still planning on doing it, though,” she said.
“It’s hard to be too enthusiastic about it at the moment. But once the excitement of going to the Dolomites wears off, I’ll probably be looking for something to motivate me.”
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