Haha - I completely forgot about this challenge!
I certainly have NOT done a sub 24 mins climb yet. TBH - this has been a very windy year and I have often not bothered to time myself because a howling cross/headwind made a fast time impossible, or (unusually) a strong cross/tailwind gave me too much help and a good time wouldn't really have been down to my efforts.
There was one climb which went well and I was going to look up my time on my GPS tracklog when I got home but when I stopped at the top of the climb, I realised that the wind had been really shoving me up the hill. I actually thought on the way up that there had been a slight headwind, but I suppose you effectively create one by riding slightly faster than the tailwind!
Back to tonight ... I have a second personal challenge featuring that hill. There is a 20 mile loop*** which takes it in and I want to complete the loop in an hour. The shortest time that I ever recorded was (I think?) 1 hr 9 mins. I may have done it quicker than that without timing it, but I remember doing that time and thinking that I hadn't really been going flat out, so I was probably fit enough then to do about 1 hr 5 mins-ish, not far off my target time.
I was out testing new gears on my bike this evening and did the loop in the opposite direction - Todmorden, Littleborough, Blackstone Edge rather than Mytholmroyd, Cragg Vale, Blackstone Edge. It is the same 20 mile loop*** with the same overall amount of climbing but the main climb is shorter and steeper this way round.
When I got back, I was surprised to have done it in 1 hr 17 mins in quite blustery conditions, and having stopped for 3 sets of red traffic lights which must have cost me at least 2 minutes in total, maybe more. That means I averaged around 16 mph when moving. Not hugely fast, but I am pretty pleased with that given the windy conditions, the big 'lump' in the middle of the ride and the fact that I was only putting in about 80% effort.
(*** I just measured the loop and it is 1% longer - 20.2 miles.)
I must still be slowly getting fitter! I keep thinking that my post-illness progress has stopped. In reality, I think I have got back to a reasonable level of fitness but any significant further progress is going to require hard work.