Best type of hill for reps?

jame58rown

Is a 3.5 mile long hill that climbs 998ft a good length for hill repeats? Or is it too long/short/not steep enough?

Thanks.

owenlars

Not really, I think you need a one or two minute hill that you can thrash up, recover on the way down and thrash up again.

walsht1105

I would use that hill for higher cadence / endurance training.

I would use a shorter (-1km or 2km) and steeper hill (12-20%) for lower cadence / sprint hard effot training.

Then find a middle length (3km-5km) middle gradient (8-10%) hill for riding up normal - so not a high cadence / not sprinting or efforts, just my normal riding style.

amaferanga

Assuming you take about 15 minutes to climb the hill the sounds good for threshold intervals.

Is it a continuous ascent with no interruptions (e.g. traffic lights, junctions, etc.)?

amaferanga

owenlars wrote:

Not really, I think you need a one or two minute hill that you can thrash up, recover on the way down and thrash up again.

Eh? Hill reps can be any length you want.

jame58rown

It's a blooming long hill, I did it an hour ago and it took me about 25 mins. I managed to keep a steady 8-9mph for most bits with a fast cadence, about 11mph on some shallower bits but it rears up to about 16% in some places where I had to stomp a bit and I came down to 5-6mph
There are twho very small 'thank god' dips that last about 4-5 seconds but thats it, all ascent bar those.

I live at the top of a 20% hill that's around 500ft (160m) Which always kills me after a ride because on almost every ride I do I finish with it. It would be very convinient for repeats because It's literaly the first piece of road outside my house. But it only takes me ~ a minute.

jibberjim

A 25 minute hill is a very good Threshold session to do some reps - 2 or 3 is plenty.

A 1 minute hill is also good for reps - 8 with the 40-60second rest you get turning round and go back down will be a good VO2max / anaerobic mixed workout.

Training is really about durations - differnet durations train different things.

ozzzyosborn206

why does it have to be 1 or 2 minutes? you could climb it and to several accelerations up it, say a minute flat out then a few spinning then on it again

freehub

Sounds boring doing the same hill over again.... Just do a hilly ride....

jame58rown

It's impossible for me to do anything but a hilly ride because of where I live, so I thought hill repeats would be a faster way to get good at hills. A normal ride would be more fun for a number of reasons but because where I live is so hilly, half of every ride I do is descending as well. It makes training in the cold really hard if you've got to do long descents more painful than climbing imo.