Magazine Gap

Magazine Gap cycling climb profile

Magazine Gap is short enough to look manageable on paper, but the numbers point to a climb that rides much harder than its 2.6 km length suggests. With an average gradient of 10.3%, it is not a draggy aerobic climb where speed slowly bleeds away. It is a compact, steep Category 2 effort that demands control from the bottom and punishes riders who treat the opening as a sprint.

The road starts at 25 m and tops out at 294 m, giving a net elevation gain of 269 m. That matters because the gain is packed into very little distance. On a climb this short, there is limited time for the gradient to reset your effort once you go too deep. The maximum gradient of 14.93% confirms that the average is not being built by a gentle, even rise alone. There are steeper pitches inside the climb, and those are where pacing errors become expensive.

How the gradient rides

The available profile does not break Magazine Gap into separate kilometre-by-kilometre ramps, so the safest reading is to treat the climb as consistently steep from bottom to summit. A 10.3% average over 2.6 km means any easier sections are either brief or offset quickly by harder gradients. There is no strong case for waiting for a long recovery section, because the headline gradient already tells the main story.

The key practical feature is compression. The climb gains height quickly, and the near-15% maximum means cadence can collapse if you arrive in too large a gear or surge too hard into the steepest sections. Riders who can keep pressure smooth will lose less speed through the ramps than riders who repeatedly spike power, stall, and have to restart momentum.

Pacing and gearing notes

Ride the first part as if the steepest pitch is still ahead. That does not mean soft-pedalling. It means keeping the effort just below the point where breathing and cadence become unstable. On a 2.6 km climb, a small overreach early can carry all the way to the summit because there is not enough road to recover properly.

Use the easiest climbing gear before cadence starts to fade, not after. The maximum gradient is high enough that waiting until the bike is already bogged down will cost more than shifting early. A low gear also lets you stay seated longer, which is usually the more efficient option on a climb where the average gradient is already over 10%.

For pacing, this is closer to a controlled threshold-to-over-threshold effort than a long endurance climb. If riding by power, anchor the effort around a sustainable hard output and accept short rises on the steepest ramps rather than forcing the same speed. If riding by feel, the right sensation is firm pressure from the start, no panic on the steep sections, and enough left to keep the final minutes from becoming a survival grind. For riders calibrating effort, an accurate /glossary/ftp number is more useful here than chasing speed, because gradient will dictate pace more than ambition.