Kingston Blount is a local climb for me. It is just 16 miles from Oxford and often makes part of a training route.
More often than not, I climb the parallel A40 climb to the West. The A40 climb towards Stokenchurch makes a good steady climb of 5% – useful for controlled intervals. Kingston Blount is more of a classic hill climb course – around one mile, getting steeper towards the top. It is 18% at the steepest, so will have you in its smallest gear. It is hard work, though not insurmountable. I’ve done it a few times at the end of a long interval session, then the legs really start to feel tired.
- Location: Aston Rowant, Oxfordshire
- Distance: 0.7 miles
- Average gradient: 9%
- Maximum gradient: 18%
- Height gain. 107m
- Direction: south-east
- 100 climbs: #122
- Strava segment
Kingston Blount.
To the left of this road – Point to Point horse races are run. On the lower slopes of the climb, you also cross the old track bed of a single railway line Watlington to Princes Risborough; this is now a footpath.
As you leave Aston Rowant, the road goes up very gradually (1%), so there are different options of where to start the climb, but after the road bends to the right, the climb proper starts. For the last 0.7 miles, it averages a good 9%.
The full climb is 1.5 miles, averaging 5% and climbs 432 ft
The road starts to go up.
At this point the climb is about 8%
January sun creeping through the trees.
The steepest part of the climb – around 16%. here. When you reach the horizon most of the climbing is done, though the road continues to gradually rise around a right hand corner until you meet up with the A40.
Veloviewer
Strava
Looking back down the climb.
– Kingston Hill Climb (steep section)
- Distance 0.60 miles
- Avg Grade – 10.3%
- Height gain – 330ft / 100.8m
Related climbs
There are many good climbs in the area. You can go up and down the Chiltern ridge all day long. I often do several climbs including Kingston Blount, e.g. Blog post – training load.
- Chinnor hill – 3 miles to the East.
- Whiteleaf Hill – about 7 miles East
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