{"id":553486,"date":"2026-04-27T15:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T15:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/553486\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T15:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T15:41:12","slug":"british-cyclist-takes-kom-on-san-franciscos-steepest-street-with-41-gradient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/553486\/","title":{"rendered":"British cyclist takes KOM on San Francisco&#8217;s steepest street with 41% gradient"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"preferred-sources-top\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=bikeradar.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"676\" height=\"213\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777304472_796_Preferred_source_publisher_button.jpg\" alt=\"Follow us on Google\" class=\"wp-image-964319\" style=\"width:150px;height:auto\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Reigning UK National Hill Climb champion Harry MacFarlane has taken the joint Strava KOM on what is claimed to be San Francisco\u2019s steepest street, matching a time that hasn&#8217;t been matched since 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The British rider tackled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/segments\/14000751\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Bradford St<\/a> \u2013 a frighteningly vertiginous ascent with gradients reported to average around 41% \u2013 matching a long-standing time set in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/athletes\/6887\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">December 2020 by <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/activities\/4477542612\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Mike Scanlon<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>According to his uploaded data, MacFarlane hit a peak power of 1,058W, averaging 1,058W for the 14-second effort.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on Strava, he summed up the ride: \u201c41% is fu*king wild.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>San Francisco is no stranger to extreme gradients. A commonly cited <a href=\"https:\/\/www.7x7.com\/the-real-top-10-list-of-steepest-streets-in-san-francisco-1786501295.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">2016 article<\/a> claims the top 10 steepest streets have an average gradient of at least 31%.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>MacFarlane retained his UK National Hill Climb Championship titles in 2025 with a record-breaking run up Matlock\u2019s Bank Road, producing an extraordinary 707W average and a peak power-to-weight ratio of 9.9W\/kg.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s note: an earlier version of this article linked to the incorrect Strava segment. This, along with MacFarlane&#8217;s performance stats and details of the previous KOM holder, have been amended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reigning UK National Hill Climb champion Harry MacFarlane has taken the joint Strava KOM on what is claimed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-553486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}