Help me speed up on hills!

Oxo

Please can you help with a daft problem that's driving me nuts.

Since returning to cycling a couple of years ago, I've noticed that I'm always a fair bit slower that my regular riding partners up hills, whether long drags, or short brutal jobs. Whether I'm on my "standard" chainset road-bike, "triple" equipped hybrid or 42/16 fixed gear, I always find myself in the same situation. Basically I seem to lose a great deal of momentum going into the first part of a hill, and find myself incapable of "spinning" - I just seem to naturally settle into a default slow cadence even when actively trying to do the opposite. The trouble is, I can carry on at this crawling pace all day - my heart-rate stays reasonably low and my breathing is fine.

As soon as I crest the hill I recover virtually instantly and I can catch my mates with ease. I did my first Sportive on Monday (Cotswold Spring Classic) which tackled some quite steep climbs, and I found exactly the same pattern in that I was passed by loads of people on the climb, then I would catch and pass them within 1/2 a mile of the top. The only people I passed on the climb were the ones that had to dismount and walk

This is totally infuriating - I tell myself repeatedly that I should just MTFU and push harder at the start, but I slip back into the same old routine. I presume hill-repeats might help, but is there a recommended method to focus and overcome my issue without destroying my recovery speed at the top of the climb?

I'm probably missing something obvious, but any pointers on how I can resolve this issue would be appreciated.

Cheers

Oxo

symo

The only way I have got faster on hills, is to eat less and ride more. MTFUing up the hills works but you are ultimately looking to improve your power to weight ratio, which means that calories in have to be less than calories expended.

sungod

stop worrying about recovering at the top, if you are fit you'll recover faster, if you aren't fit you'll recover slower, either way, recovery at the top has nothing to do with helping you go up hills faster

plus, when you get to a top of a hill, you don't ease off to recover, you get on the big ring and keep on hard to drop the buggers behind you :-)

if your breathing and heart rate are as you describe, by definition you are not trying hard enough, going up hills fast is hard

choose a decent hill on which you can use a gear where you have to go hard to keep cadence 65-75, don't just grind up

warm up properly, then...

go up hill, hard

sprint the last 50m to the top

coast down

repeat several times, a couple of days a week, for a few months

as the previous poster says, power:weight ratio counts on hills, the hill repeats will help develop sustainable power, the energy expenditure will help reduce the weight

Oxo

Thanks for the very encouraging replies, certainly gives me something to think about. Sounds like it's fixable with some work at least.

j_marvin

I have a couple of opinions on where your problem may lie.

The first is a long shot, and I hesitate to even suggest it, but it could perhaps be an issue with your bike fit, and your saddle fore/aft position in particular. Now in the case that you don't feel discomfort on the bike, are generally happy with the fit and are certain that it is entirely a fitness issue, then you can safely ignore this, but in the case that the saddle is set too far forward, it would favour your ability to spin on the flats and downhill, but could potentially sacrifice some small amount of power when climbing. Again, if this hasn't already occurred to you then changing the bike fit unnecessarily will most often do more harm than good, but you can find some food for thought here:

http://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com/blo ... oad-bikes/

One consideration might be your threshold power. Hill climbing, in my experience, reduces your margin for error when it comes to your level of effort. An example might be that you are cruising along at 95rpm on the flat, working hard but feeling comfortable. An increase in revs by 5rpm doesn't represent a massive increase in the amount of work you are doing, so you're not likely to blow up straight away. When climbing, an increase in 5rpm might take you from one side of your sustainable threshold to the other, so it is important to try to find that sustainable rhythm when climbing.

As a side note, an important thing to remember is that using your heart rate as a gauge of the effort that you can sustain is a bad way of doing things. Your heart rate will normally very steadily increase, even when producing the same amount of power. If at the start of the hill your heart rate is at 85%, you might find that without any increase in effort, at the top it could reach 90%, to give just one example. So pushing at the bottom of a climb because you don't see the high HR numbers you would associate with a tough effort might mean you blowing up before the top.

The best way to pace yourself is normally with perceived effort. How hard does it feel like you are working? Importantly - Can you work this hard all the way to the top?

So there's your quick guide on how to not overpace yourself and blow up before the climb is done. Now, I think you should go out and overpace yourself, perhaps even blow up before the climb is done.

As others have pointed out, climbing is hard. It might be that you are sticking to a comfort zone to make sure that you're not overdooing it. There are two shortfalls to this method:

If you stick to within your comfort zone on a climb, you're likely to get dropped; If you stick to within your comfort zone on a climb, the boundaries of your comfort zone will never expand.

By riding up a hill hard, maybe even too hard, you will get a better appreciation for what kind of pace you can actually sustain. Do a few hill repeats - And go hard. Make sure that when you feel like giving up, you carry on. Keep going until you can literally go no more, and then you have found your limit. Remember how riding at that intensity felt, and use the techniques above to make sure that you go as close to that intensity without unnecessarily exceeding it when you climb. I like to think of training this way: I am not training to make my climbing feel easier or more comfortable, but to make myself faster at a given level of discomfort.

One thing that will certainly help you is interval training. There are many (too many!) sources of information on this, so if you're not familiar with interval training then have a quick Google. Interval training is the single best way to improve your climbing, aside from climbing. Beside improving your speed and your ability to work at your limit, it will also give you, as above, an idea of just what you are capable of in terms of sustaining your level of effort.

StillGoing

Hip abductors. I have similar issues and on a recent trip to the physio it was pointed out that the hip abductors play an important part in climbing ability and sustainability. Currently I have decent quads which are doing most of the work and quickly become depleted of energy when being utilised to their maximum, so have been given some hip abductor specific exercises.

I'd also agree with checking the bike as I spent the first 9 miles of a recent ride with the rear brake firmly binding on one side of the rim. I struggled getting up lumps let alone hills.

rick_chasey

I imagine it's just a question of fitness.

On the flat you can hide in the shelter etc.

Once the road points uphill, there is no-where to hide.

Solution? Cycle more .