5,000m of climbing and 35 repeats: Conor Dunne's bid for Local Legend status

What does it take to become a Strava Local Legend? Handed out to the rider who has ridden a segment the most times in a 90-day period, Local Legend status is an accolade awarded by Strava to athletes who are regulars on their local road. Speed or time aren’t a factor here, like KoMs, just the number of times you complete it.

To become one seems easy: ride your chosen segment more times than anyone else. But how many times really is that? And what if, for example, you really wanted to nab Local Legend status on a particular stretch of road? Well, GCN’s Conor Dunne set out to do just that, and grab the title on a climb for the first time ever. Never one to make it easy, though, Conor didn’t want to just become a Local Legend - he wanted to see if he could do it in just one day.

Did he pick an easy, flat segment to target? No, of course not. Instead, he headed to the Bathwick Hill in Bath, a 1.5km slope with an average gradient of 8.3%, where the KoM is held by none other than hill climb specialist Andrew Feather. This wasn’t going to be easy.

In order to take the Local Legend title, Conor would have to complete the climb no fewer than 35 times, making for a ride with more than 5,000m elevation gain. To see how he got on, and learn more about some of the most ridden segments around the world, check out the full video above.