Climbing

jerry3571

I've tried putting a paving slabs under my front wheel when on my Turbo Trainer.This makes the front wheel higher than the back wheel. This height can be adjusted by how many slabs used. Try to simulate the angle of a real hill so not too steep an angle. The general jist is that when you are climbing you are sat slightly differently on the bike which means that different muscle groups will be used. Riding on the flat uses other muscle groups so practicing big gears on the flat is not much good.
(I'm not recommending to use a Turbo Trainer in such a risky way; I've tried it and it was ok for me- don't want anyone sueing if they fall into the Greenhouse whilst doing the above. Hmmm...)
Also, find a local climb that takes a 2- 5 minutes to go up. You can use this for interval training by simply going up it as hard as you can and then gently coming down. The downhill usually is enough time for the heart rate to drop off for another effort. Use a very quiet road for this as you don't want to get involved in traffic when turning round after each ascent/descent.
Get a bike computer with a Cadence Counter on it and try to keep it above 80 rpm. Big efforts and low rpm means sore knees; unless the knees are made of cast iron.
Hope that helps-
Jerry