Tackling those climbs

AdamSean

I just thought i would mention my experiences with climbing hills. Let me first say that I am not a pro. I have been riding regularly for a little more than 2 years now and have picked up a few techniques that have worked well for me and I thought I would pass then along. I used to have a lot of trouble with those steep climbs that would leave me gasping for oxygen at the top. Lately though, I have developed an east to remember technique that has thrusted me over just about every climb I have come across. And here it is. I break the ascent down into 3 stages.

1) As I approach the hill, I pedal up to a decent pace with a cadence of around 105 RPM. I will hold this cadence through the first 1/3 of the climb, downshifting as needed to maintain cadence.
2) When I feel my pace and cadence begin to reduce, I will stand and pedal hard through the 2nd 1/3 of the climb or all the way to the top if I can.
3) If I don't make it to the top of the climb and my legs start to weaken while I am standing, I sit down and drop down into a lower chainring and spin the rest of the way to the top.

I have found this little technique has saved me almost a full minute on some climbs I have struggled on in the past. I am also interested in hearing some of the techniques others are using. How do you get to the top?

P_Tucker

I follow a simple plan:

1. Pedal
2. Am I at the top yet? If not, goto 1
3. Success!

styxd

This technique sounds very specific to a few climbs in your local area. For example, this wouldnt work if attempting hardknott pass.

Dogma Dave

Excellent advice which I shall bear in mind on Ventoux next month.

celbianchi

Wow. How long did it take to develop this easy to remember technique?
Ever thought of a career as a cycling troubleshooter?

Davey C

Thanks for this!! When will you do a follow up like how to go downhill or ride on the flat?

ShutUpLegs

AdamSean wrote:

I just thought i would mention my experiences with climbing hills. Let me first say that I am not a pro. I have been riding regularly for a little more than 2 years now and have picked up a few techniques that have worked well for me and I thought I would pass then along. I used to have a lot of trouble with those steep climbs that would leave me gasping for oxygen at the top. Lately though, I have developed an east to remember technique that has thrusted me over just about every climb I have come across. And here it is. I break the ascent down into 3 stages.

1) As I approach the hill, I pedal up to a decent pace with a cadence of around 105 RPM. I will hold this cadence through the first 1/3 of the climb, downshifting as needed to maintain cadence.
2) When I feel my pace and cadence begin to reduce, I will stand and pedal hard through the 2nd 1/3 of the climb or all the way to the top if I can.
3) If I don't make it to the top of the climb and my legs start to weaken while I am standing, I sit down and drop down into a lower chainring and spin the rest of the way to the top.

I have found this little technique has saved me almost a full minute on some climbs I have struggled on in the past. I am also interested in hearing some of the techniques others are using. How do you get to the top?

What Category of climb are these :?:

KentPuncheur

Ingenious, I'll book a flight to the Alps now and will have no problem at all! Have you let Brailsford know yet?

AdamSean

You know, most of the riders here are very supportive and try to instill inspiration and encouragement to further support the sport. You people really need to look at why you do this. And this is why none of you will ever gain my respect.

P_Tucker

AdamSean wrote:

You know, most of the riders here are very supportive and try to instill inspiration and encouragement to further support the sport. You people really need to look at why you do this. And this is why none of you will ever gain my respect.

Don't let it get you down. I find the best way to deal with it is as follows:

1) As I approach the internet, I speed up to a decent pace with a typing speed of around 105 WPM. I will hold this bolleaux-typing speed through the first 1/3 of the post, lowering the bolleaux-quotient as needed to maintain typing speed.
2) When I feel my pace and bolleaux-dribbling begin to reduce, I will press the keys really hard through the 2nd 1/3 of the post or all the way to the end if I can.
3) If I don't make it to the end of the post and I run out of bolleaux to type, I sit down and drop down into lower case and ask questions the rest of the way to the end.

dw300

P_Tucker wrote:

Don't let it get you down. I find the best way to deal with it is as follows:

1) As I approach the internet, I speed up to a decent pace with a typing speed of around 105 WPM. I will hold this bolleaux-typing speed through the first 1/3 of the post, lowering the bolleaux-quotient as needed to maintain typing speed.
2) When I feel my pace and bolleaux-dribbling begin to reduce, I will press the keys really hard through the 2nd 1/3 of the post or all the way to the end if I can.
3) If I don't make it to the end of the post and I run out of bolleaux to type, I sit down and drop down into lower case and ask questions the rest of the way to the end.

Lol .. although still inspired by pure hatred, at least you made a funny post!

P_Tucker

Contempt, not hatred. You have to have a certain level of respect for things you hate

Dogma Dave

AdamSean wrote:

You know, most of the riders here are very supportive and try to instill inspiration and encouragement to further support the sport. You people really need to look at why you do this. And this is why none of you will ever gain my respect.

We are all GUTTED!

t.m.h.n.e.t

What is the point? Your climbing cadence is probably different to everyone who's posted in the thread. But forgetting that you've just described how any cyclist who doesn't get off and push,climbs a hill.

Pedal - pedal some more - click into a lower gear - maybe stand up - maybe stay seated - think about cake - reach the top - carry on

Riveting new information.

P_Tucker

My plan works in all circumstances on any hill. Fact.

thiscocks

Wow this thread did the opposite of what the title suggested and went down hill rather quickly!

Leroy42

Well it appears from the responses that everyone on this forum is completely comfortable with climbing and do not need this basic advice. Whoopy-do.

Maybe, just maybe, there are others going through this forum looking for advice on how to start to make some progress so that at some stage they can attain the level of success and confidence that all of you have obviously achieved.

Luckily, for the rest of us there are still people who are willing to take the time to point out what might seem simple techniques but sometimes it's the simpliest things that make the difference.

It's never a bad idea to give good advice

styxd

Maybe, just maybe, there are others going through this forum looking for advice on how to start to make some progress so that at some stage they can attain the level of success and confidence that all of you have obviously achieved.

This level or success and confidence can only be achieved by spending more time on the forum.

Luckily, for the rest of us there are still people who are willing to take the time to point out what might seem simple techniques but sometimes it's the simpliest things that make the difference.

I can imagine there must be lots of cyclists who have overlooked the fact that if you pedal hard and/or fast, you'll be able to get to the top of a hill.

I think the OP has been gasping on to much oxygen.

smidsy

I know that if i want to get better at hills I need to ride up hills. I know that if I pedal harder up hills I will go quicker up hills. I know that if I get tired in a certain gear I can drop down the gears.I know that I need to MTFU to get better. BUT What no one has ever been able to relay to me is tangible advice/techniques for improving my ability to climb hills.

What I am saying here is that even when you know all the above, actually being able to do those things is not easy. Is there a basic set of elements that you need to use to put those ideals into practice?

My riding has improved greatly since I started in January and I can ride much greater distances at a much improved average and yet I still seem to be totally useless at climbing hills. Everyone else I ever cycle with is simply much better at hills.

So do I just have to keep doing what I am doing and it will eventually click or am I missing something?

bahzob

To the OP.

There is nothing wrong with your original post, it's sad that about the trolling. If you have been, don't fret about them and please don't let it stop you posting more in future.

As to the what you said, it's good advice and useful especially for beginners. (Speaking as someone who, unlike most trolls above, has actually done one hell of a lot of climbing and done it pretty well.)

It shows you have a plan (which many don't they just use brute force and ignorance). Your technique is a good one, especially for a certain type of hill. In terms of more general advice I'd give here you go:

- Not all climbs are the same. It helps to break them down into categories and the best way to do this is map them onto training zones as this will determine your climbing approach:

(common sense alert. These are generalisations and there are always exceptions. Someone I know does every climb standing, including the whole of the Marmotte. It works for him, so I won't knock it but also wouldn't recommend it for others.)

- Sprint Hills: This are short sharp ramps that only take 20-30s to get up. These are all about anaerobic explosive power and probably best tackled by hitting hard at the bottom and standing up for the whole climb. It may be worth going down a gear just before you hit, but you may just stay in gear if the change in incline isn't too great. One thing though: these efforts take a bit of recovery. If many of these climbs come back to back and no recovery is possible then some of the earlier ones are probably best treated as VO2 below.

- VO2 hills: These are hills that take 1-6 mins or so to get up, and probably the ones you are doing. These are the hardest to give firm advice about since people will vary quite a lot in terms of their physical makeup and ability . Some will find these easiest doing a sub max sprint standing from bottom to top. Others may engage lowest gear and spin all the way. Others may do as you have and adopt a varying approach. That said even those in the first 2 categories need to be able to adapt.

- Threshold hills/mountains: These take around 10-45 minutes. So for the first time they will include mountains, not just hills. If your objective is to go as fast as possible you will want to go up these at just above threshold effort, equivalent to riding a 10 mile time trial. Treating the climb as a time trial is also the best way to tackle it. Best is engage gears that will allow you to maintain a constant cadence (at least 60rpm) that allow you to pump out constant steady sustained power from the bottom to the top. If the climb has big changes of pitch you may stand up briefly to kick through these but will sit down again and get back to your steady cadence once they are over. Towards the end you may up the gears and sprint to the finish if you still have some reserve in the tank.

Endurance Mountains: These take an hour or more to climb. These are all about staying power, so key thing is to get pacing right. A good approach is to break the climb into stages and aim to do each stage at roughly the same/gradual increasing effort. A general guide to effort is to imagine doing a flat TT of equivalent duration. Generally best technique is to keep a steady comfortable cadence but you may do a few sections standing just for variety. Other key thing is know the climb, every one in this category will have a guide e.g.http://www.climbbybike.com/ , use this to plan effort. A climb like Alpe D'Huez with hardest gradients at the bottom and easy finish needs a slightly different approach to Galibier where the final km is a bitch. A guy mentioned Ventoux earlier. Not sure if he was being sarcastic but anyway funnily enough your approach is sort of what you need for the Bedoin route . First is easy steady climb, in the forest it gets steep and there will be parts where you need to stand up, out of the forest and the final approach you may be lucky or unlucky with the wind so you may well find yourself as you say "drop down into a lower chainring and spin the rest of the way to the top. "

Hope this may be useful, thanks again for the original approach and don't let the trolls get you down. Chances are you will speed past them on a hill/mountain some day

http://www.climbbybike.com/

bahzob

smidsy wrote:

I know that if i want to get better at hills I need to ride up hills...

So do I just have to keep doing what I am doing and it will eventually click or am I missing something?

I hope my post helps out. If it doesn't or you want more advice then please reply. It would help to know what sort of climbs you are having difficulty with (in terms of how long they take, how steep they are and anything that may make they climb different to average).

Couple of general things to check
- Bike fit. Climbs are most likey the hardest efforts you do on a bike. As such they will accentuate any issues with your bike set up, a common issue for example is having the saddle set too low. You may not notice this on the flat but hit a slope and it may make seated pedaling a lot harder forcing you to stand up.

If you do a lot of cycling getting a bike fit is IMO the best single value for money investment you can make to become better, including as a climber.

- Gearing. Over the years I have overtaken thousands of cyclists on hills/mountains in the UK and abroad. The single biggest issue many of them shared was trying to push too big a gear, resulting in a tortuously slow cadence. In the same time I think I have been overtaken by around 10 or so better riders. All were pedaling at a higher cadence than me.

There is no absolute best cadence suitable for all but it is the case that if your cadence drops below 50 rpm you are failing and if its not at or above 60 rpm you should try using smaller gears. If that means using a compact or triple then use a compact or triple.

(Just to put one myth to bed on this subject. I have often heard the defence from people who struggle pushing a massive gear that massive gears work ok for "grinders" like Jan Ullrich. Linked is a video of Ullrich "grinding" his way up Alpe D'Huez. The things to copy are his cadence and smooth pedaling style, not the chain rings he uses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPWTaE-0gM

smidsy

Cheers bahzob both your posts are certainly the best I have read in my quest to understand hills.

My main issue seems to be that I am already beat by the fact that the hill is coming. I have tried several things but always seem to end up in the granny gear spinning up the hill - which always results in being dropped.

The short punchy hills are not too bad as I simply use my appraoch speed to my advantage and get out of the saddle and continue to push the same gear - I have always been a sprinter (100m at school etc) but my stamina for sustained effort seems to be the issue.

Anything over 20 secs tends to be my downfall. Typical hills round me will be say 9 to 12% and take me about 6 or 7 mins to climb, with everyone else taking significantly less.

celbianchi

bahzob - good that you are being helpful.
I'd be interested how you qualify your claim to be a more successful climber than most of the others who have posted above? For all I know you might be top 6 in the national hilclimb every year, or indeed a pro riding hilly European races. Alternatley you may not.

What makes you so sure you are more qualified than others who have commented?

t.m.h.n.e.t

Leroy42 wrote:

Well it appears from the responses that everyone on this forum is completely comfortable with climbing and do not need this basic advice. Whoopy-do.

Maybe, just maybe, there are others going through this forum looking for advice on how to start to make some progress so that at some stage they can attain the level of success and confidence that all of you have obviously achieved.

Luckily, for the rest of us there are still people who are willing to take the time to point out what might seem simple techniques but sometimes it's the simpliest things that make the difference.

It's never a bad idea to give good advice

The OP didn't give basic advice. He told the forum how he climbs hills at 105RPM. Great! but almost entirely useless information to anyone else but him. It's useless along the lines of "I can maintain 25mph with my HR averaging 136BPM using the 7th rear cog and big ring @ 85 RPM"

Not quite sure why everyone is patting him on the back.

celbianchi

T.M.H.N.E.T wrote:

Leroy42 wrote:

Well it appears from the responses that everyone on this forum is completely comfortable with climbing and do not need this basic advice. Whoopy-do.

Maybe, just maybe, there are others going through this forum looking for advice on how to start to make some progress so that at some stage they can attain the level of success and confidence that all of you have obviously achieved.

Luckily, for the rest of us there are still people who are willing to take the time to point out what might seem simple techniques but sometimes it's the simpliest things that make the difference.

It's never a bad idea to give good advice

The OP didn't give basic advice. He told the forum how he climbs hills at 105RPM. Great! but almost entirely useless information to anyone else but him. It's useless along the lines of "I can maintain 25mph with my HR averaging 136BPM using the 7th rear cog and big ring @ 85 RPM"

Not quite sure why everyone is patting him on the back.

I think most of us are taking the pi$$ aren't we and he's now got the hump?

ShutUpLegs

celbianchi wrote:

What makes you so sure you are more qualified than others who have commented?

He's overtaken thousands of people and hardly ever overtaken himself :?:

t.m.h.n.e.t

celbianchi wrote:

T.M.H.N.E.T wrote:

Leroy42 wrote:

Well it appears from the responses that everyone on this forum is completely comfortable with climbing and do not need this basic advice. Whoopy-do.

Maybe, just maybe, there are others going through this forum looking for advice on how to start to make some progress so that at some stage they can attain the level of success and confidence that all of you have obviously achieved.

Luckily, for the rest of us there are still people who are willing to take the time to point out what might seem simple techniques but sometimes it's the simpliest things that make the difference.

It's never a bad idea to give good advice

The OP didn't give basic advice. He told the forum how he climbs hills at 105RPM. Great! but almost entirely useless information to anyone else but him. It's useless along the lines of "I can maintain 25mph with my HR averaging 136BPM using the 7th rear cog and big ring @ 85 RPM"

Not quite sure why everyone is patting him on the back.

I think most of us are taking the pi$$ aren't we and he's now got the hump?

Yep

celbianchi

ShutUpLegs wrote:

celbianchi wrote:

What makes you so sure you are more qualified than others who have commented?

He's overtaken thousands of people and hardly ever overtaken himself :?:

True but any of the others above who have commented may themselves be handy in the hills yet bahzob seems to dismiss them without any knowledge as to who they are.

bahzob

celbianchi wrote:

ShutUpLegs wrote:

celbianchi wrote:

What makes you so sure you are more qualified than others who have commented?

He's overtaken thousands of people and hardly ever overtaken himself :?:

True but any of the others above who have commented may themselves be handy in the hills yet bahzob seems to dismiss them without any knowledge as to who they are.

I am not going to turn this into a trollfest so this is the only post I will make directly about those who posted insults to the OP here.

If you look their contributions its pretty obvious they are only interested in displaying their sad lack of wit/making themselves feel better by making others feel worse.

These have no place on this forum, most especially in response to someone who is a new poster who displays enthusiasm about what he has discovered and wants to share it with others. His is the sort of thing this forum needs more of, not the moronic responses of the trolls.

As for their qualifications or otherwise:
- There is nothing in their replies that indicates any skill at anything.
- As I said in my post the OP is already doing something many people don't do. He has a plan that he has developed and works for him. Even if the details don't work for others then they could at least learn from his approach.

As for my qualifications. I've climbed 100s of mountains (not just hills), including some of the highest (Bonette, Stelvio, Galibier) and hardest (Zoncolan, Mortirolo). My PB for vertical ascent in a days ride is 6500m/190k. I've done these for fun, including a full ride of the tour de france with back to back mountain stages/raids pyreneen and dolomite and I've done as sportives, including a top 200 overall in the Etape.

So I think I'm qualified to talk about climbing.

Tom Dean

Climbing is not some special skill. Work on your power output.

bahzob

smidsy wrote:

Cheers bahzob both your posts are certainly the best I have read in my quest to understand hills.

My main issue seems to be that I am already beat by the fact that the hill is coming. I have tried several things but always seem to end up in the granny gear spinning up the hill - which always results in being dropped.

The short punchy hills are not too bad as I simply use my appraoch speed to my advantage and get out of the saddle and continue to push the same gear - I have always been a sprinter (100m at school etc) but my stamina for sustained effort seems to be the issue.

Anything over 20 secs tends to be my downfall. Typical hills round me will be say 9 to 12% and take me about 6 or 7 mins to climb, with everyone else taking significantly less.

You are not alone having trouble with those types of hills. If you do them at full effort they map pretty closely to VO2 intervals which most everyone hates, as they really hurt and seem to last forever.

They are also the ones where people will vary most in terms of how they approach, so I can only say what works for me, as the OP did what works for him. Anyway here's what I suggest
- As the name suggests VO2 workouts are about oxygen, start breathing as hard as you can just before you hit the approach and keep this up right through the climb.
- Since this is short hard work, you really want to start the climb warmed up, so if you have a flat run in use it to build up some speed/warm up a bit.
- Drink before the climb, not during it.
- Ideally you want to keep intensity as steady as possible. However there may be time when you need to up effort quickly, say due to a change in pitch or jump to a wheel ahead. You can do this by standing up and sprinting quickly for a few revs. However in a climb like this you will only be able to do this a limited number of times, maybe only once. Exactly how many will depend on you. One often used analogy is think of these efforts as "matches" that you can burn at some point. Its good to have an idea of how many "matches" you have and a plan of when to use them.("burn a match")

- Getting a good start is important. You must be in the correct chain ring (usually the smallest) as you never want to have to swap this during a climb and have an idea about what gear you want to use on the back sprocket. (Really this should be at least one above the granny, you want your granny to be an emergency gear).
- Engage a back gear a couple or so up from your planned climbing gear.
- At the start of the hill stand up and kick for 5-10 revs to get some momentum/get heated up. (Usually you won't burn a match on this though, though you may if the hill starts off very steep then gets easier)
- Sit down/Drop down to climbing gear and concentrate on keeping smooth steady cadence, at least 60rpm.
- If there are big changes of pitch either change/up down or burn a match to kick through them.
- Have an external focus. If you are in a group maybe lock onto someones wheel. If solo what helps me is constantly picking out small road markings 10-15m and riding to them, then picking a new one etc.
- Other focuses are keep breathing deep/hard and cadence smooth. On hills of this type what works for me is also keep cadence nice and high.
- Even on a small climb its worth breaking it into parts, appropriate to the nature of the hill. So for a hill that starts steep and gets easier you may do first half steady, upping effort next quarter then standing up and sprinting to end
-- If hill starts easy but gets ever steeper it may be hitting bottom hard but then spin to top engaging granny at the steepest point through to the end.

Apart from all the above other thing is keep training. Good news is most types of training will help with these hills. Best training of all is probably to keep doing them. One of the best training drills is simply to repeat ride up hills like these. This will get fitness up and also allow opportunity to try different techniques, e.g spinning, testing how many matches you have to burn.

If getting better on these hills is a real focus, other thing (common to all sorts of training) is have some sort of goal to check progress. Use the overall time for the hill or try staying on someone else's wheel until at least half way.

Hope some of this is of use and good luck