diff --git a/mmcv/runner/hooks/lr_updater.py b/mmcv/runner/hooks/lr_updater.py
index 4aa22ed1c0..2edf5610b0 100644
--- a/mmcv/runner/hooks/lr_updater.py
+++ b/mmcv/runner/hooks/lr_updater.py
@@ -367,13 +367,16 @@ class CyclicLrUpdaterHook(LrUpdaterHook):
     triangular policy inside a cycle. This improves the performance in the
     3D detection area.
 
-    Attributes:
+    Args:
+        by_epoch (bool): Whether to update LR by epoch.
         target_ratio (tuple[float]): Relative ratio of the highest LR and the
             lowest LR to the initial LR.
         cyclic_times (int): Number of cycles during training
         step_ratio_up (float): The ratio of the increasing process of LR in
             the total cycle.
-        by_epoch (bool): Whether to update LR by epoch.
+        anneal_strategy (str): {'cos', 'linear'}
+            Specifies the annealing strategy: 'cos' for cosine annealing,
+            'linear' for linear annealing. Default: 'cos'.
     """
 
     def __init__(self,
@@ -381,6 +384,7 @@ def __init__(self,
                  target_ratio=(10, 1e-4),
                  cyclic_times=1,
                  step_ratio_up=0.4,
+                 anneal_strategy='cos',
                  **kwargs):
         if isinstance(target_ratio, float):
             target_ratio = (target_ratio, target_ratio / 1e5)
@@ -400,6 +404,14 @@ def __init__(self,
         self.cyclic_times = cyclic_times
         self.step_ratio_up = step_ratio_up
         self.lr_phases = []  # init lr_phases
+        # validate anneal_strategy
+        if anneal_strategy not in ['cos', 'linear']:
+            raise ValueError('anneal_strategy must be one of "cos" or '
+                             f'"linear", instead got {anneal_strategy}')
+        elif anneal_strategy == 'cos':
+            self.anneal_func = annealing_cos
+        elif anneal_strategy == 'linear':
+            self.anneal_func = annealing_linear
 
         assert not by_epoch, \
             'currently only support "by_epoch" = False'
@@ -425,9 +437,9 @@ def get_lr(self, runner, base_lr):
             curr_iter %= max_iter_per_phase
             if start_iter <= curr_iter < end_iter:
                 progress = curr_iter - start_iter
-                return annealing_cos(base_lr * start_ratio,
-                                     base_lr * end_ratio,
-                                     progress / (end_iter - start_iter))
+                return self.anneal_func(base_lr * start_ratio,
+                                        base_lr * end_ratio,
+                                        progress / (end_iter - start_iter))
 
 
 @HOOKS.register_module()
diff --git a/tests/test_runner/test_hooks.py b/tests/test_runner/test_hooks.py
index 6a6e72960d..41ce493b14 100644
--- a/tests/test_runner/test_hooks.py
+++ b/tests/test_runner/test_hooks.py
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@
                          MlflowLoggerHook, PaviLoggerHook, WandbLoggerHook,
                          build_runner)
 from mmcv.runner.hooks.lr_updater import (CosineRestartLrUpdaterHook,
+                                          CyclicLrUpdaterHook,
                                           OneCycleLrUpdaterHook,
                                           StepLrUpdaterHook)
 
@@ -714,6 +715,93 @@ def test_step_lr_update_hook(multi_optimziers):
     hook.writer.add_scalars.assert_has_calls(calls, any_order=True)
 
 
+@pytest.mark.parametrize('multi_optimizers, max_iters', [(True, 8),
+                                                         (False, 8)])
+def test_cyclic_lr_update_hook(multi_optimizers, max_iters):
+    """Test CyclicLrUpdateHook."""
+    with pytest.raises(AssertionError):
+        # by_epoch should be False
+        CyclicLrUpdaterHook(by_epoch=True)
+
+    with pytest.raises(AssertionError):
+        # target_ratio" must be either float or tuple/list of two floats
+        CyclicLrUpdaterHook(by_epoch=False, target_ratio=(10.0, 0.1, 0.2))
+
+    with pytest.raises(AssertionError):
+        # step_ratio_up" must be in range [0,1)
+        CyclicLrUpdaterHook(by_epoch=False, step_ratio_up=1.4)
+
+    with pytest.raises(ValueError):
+        # anneal_strategy must be one of "cos" or "linear"
+        CyclicLrUpdaterHook(by_epoch=False, anneal_strategy='sin')
+
+    sys.modules['pavi'] = MagicMock()
+    loader = DataLoader(torch.ones((10, 2)))
+    runner = _build_demo_runner(
+        runner_type='IterBasedRunner',
+        max_epochs=None,
+        max_iters=max_iters,
+        multi_optimziers=multi_optimizers)
+
+    # add cyclic LR scheduler
+    hook = CyclicLrUpdaterHook(
+        by_epoch=False,
+        target_ratio=(10.0, 1.0),
+        cyclic_times=1,
+        step_ratio_up=0.5,
+        anneal_strategy='linear')
+    runner.register_hook(hook)
+    runner.register_hook_from_cfg(dict(type='IterTimerHook'))
+    runner.register_hook(IterTimerHook())
+    # add pavi hook
+    hook = PaviLoggerHook(interval=1, add_graph=False, add_last_ckpt=True)
+    runner.register_hook(hook)
+    runner.run([loader], [('train', 1)])
+    shutil.rmtree(runner.work_dir)
+
+    assert hasattr(hook, 'writer')
+    if multi_optimizers:
+        calls = [
+            call(
+                'train', {
+                    'learning_rate/model1': 0.02,
+                    'learning_rate/model2': 0.01,
+                    'momentum/model1': 0.95,
+                    'momentum/model2': 0.9,
+                }, 1),
+            call(
+                'train', {
+                    'learning_rate/model1': 0.155,
+                    'learning_rate/model2': 0.0775,
+                    'momentum/model1': 0.95,
+                    'momentum/model2': 0.9,
+                }, 4),
+            call(
+                'train', {
+                    'learning_rate/model1': 0.155,
+                    'learning_rate/model2': 0.0775,
+                    'momentum/model1': 0.95,
+                    'momentum/model2': 0.9,
+                }, 6)
+        ]
+    else:
+        calls = [
+            call('train', {
+                'learning_rate': 0.02,
+                'momentum': 0.95
+            }, 1),
+            call('train', {
+                'learning_rate': 0.155,
+                'momentum': 0.95
+            }, 4),
+            call('train', {
+                'learning_rate': 0.155,
+                'momentum': 0.95
+            }, 6),
+        ]
+    hook.writer.add_scalars.assert_has_calls(calls, any_order=True)
+
+
 @pytest.mark.parametrize('log_model', (True, False))
 def test_mlflow_hook(log_model):
     sys.modules['mlflow'] = MagicMock()