climbing - high cadence? contador 20/08/12

clunkychunky

Morning all

The past couple of months i have made a big effort to improve my climbing. After reading advice on this forum and a few articles in various magazines i made a conscious effort to increase my cadence whilst climbing.

The first thing i noticed was the strain it put on my knees and also i felt that i wasn't climbing as fast (my technique before this had always been out of the saddle grinding probably too big a gear, but you always felt you were getting somewhere) but i persevered and knees quickly got used to it.

However, my best times on various hills i train on is still set from when i was grinding it in a higher gear but with low cadence. Granted according to my garmin 500 my heartrate is very slightly lower when climbing the hills with a higher cadence and seated.

Anyway, then i watched the Vuelta yesterday (always have adored this race) and focused my attention on climbing styles, in particular that of Alberto Contador. Like him or loathe him, he is simply one of the greatest climbers ever. His form yesterday was unbelievable considering how little racing he has done this year. Anyway, what i noticed was that he does most of his climbing out of the saddle.

So my question is this, is high cadence when climbing really that beneficial??

From what i have read it seems that the high cadence climbing technique was instigated by Lance Armstrong. Normally i would never question the great man (great imo) but seeing Contador yest i am now wondering if some people are just naturally more efficient and suited to climbing out of the saddle.

What do you think?

rick_chasey

Do whatever works for you.

It's different depending on the person. They've done studies into the optimal cadence and IIRC the results were 'whatever feels best is usually the most efficient'.

Being overgeared isn't going to help, but pushing a bigger gear than the guy next to you isn't always a problem.

smidsy

How many others climbed mostly out of the saddle? 50+ guys climbing and you pick one out - the most common style is surely the most likley to be suited to more people.

1 guy is not a benchmark.

amaferanga

I'd not worry about cadence too much and practice climbing in different ways until you find what works for you. Being able to climb out of the saddle is a 'skill' worth having IMO.

bahzob

If you are going to pick a pro cyclist as a role model look at Bradley Wiggins not Contador.

He is much more representative for the average guy. He's not a drugs cheat and he's not a "natural" climber but someone who has had to adapt in order to become one of the best climbers in the world.

His style is marked by an amazingly smooth pedaling action that barely changes regardless of the nature of the climb. Look and learn.

Couple of other comments:
- Don't be misled by how even Contador rides during a race. If it was a straight TT up a hill as fast as possible even he would be seated turning around 100 rpm for the vast majority of the climb, reserving standing up for any especially steep sections.

- Cadence does matter. You don't need to climb at 100rpm but if you can't maintain at least 50rpm you are failing. This is the single biggest mistake most amateurs make, especially those with no real experience of climbing mountains.

- If your knees hurt when climbing seated check your bike fit. Chances are your saddle is too low, climbing will accentuate this if its an issue.

dw300

You seem to be suggesting that Contador was out of the saddle and using a low cadence. I didn't really see that. To me he used a variety of positions and cadences. He was out of the saddle with a high cadence when attacking, and in the saddle with high cadence in a group. He was out of the saddle, with a lower cadence once or twice, I presumed just prior to attacks.

StillGoing

And Froome who remained seated almost throughout had the better of him at the line. Armstrong was encouraged to stay in the seat by his coach following studies of the great climbers of the era. It wasn't him who devised the technique, he just learned from observing the masters.

bigpikle

are you built like Bertie? Do you have the same weight, power to weight ratio, limb length etc? As most of us dont, it probably isnt worth watching what he does and trying to copy it.

As already said I think you need to find what works for you and your goal on a particular ride? Do you need to do this hill amongst many many others on a 100 mile ride or are you just interested on a PB on that hill on the day? Climbing out of the saddle is known to be a much less energy efficient method of climbing, so may not be what you want to use all the time.

clunkychunky

thanks for all the replies.

after watching the stage yesterday it was visible that most were seated whilst climbing, apart from really steep bits.
contador just has an incredible technique and i can only watch in envy. how he maintains such a high cadence whilst out of saddle i will never know. he looked to be spinning faster out of saddle than those around him who were seated!

out of interest, anyone have any idea what gearing they would be using on yesterdays stage?
do any of the peloton ever use a compact? what cassette would they have been using?

crescent

Same as the OP, watching closely to see the various climbing styles on display as I try and improve my upward motion. I did three runs up a 'favourite' hill of mine on Monday night, pretty much exactly a mile from bottom to top. First run standing up in the big ring - hurt at first but the pain seemed to plateau and I made it in 6m09secs. Second run, after recovery, sitting down using small ring - less pain in legs but felt less efficient and completed in 6m39secs. Third run was a combination of both and completed in 6m09secs. Deliberately started all of the above from stationary position to level the playing field, so to speak.
Out for a ride last night and worked on carrying momentum into the hills I climbed up, kept in the big ring for as long as possible until I felt that my pedal strokes were no longer 'circular' and then lowered the gear and increased cadence to get back into a decent rythm. Early days, but so far this seems like the best option for me.
Having said that, I'll probably be trying something different next week :roll:

Ringo 68

There is a hill that I ride up regulary. The other day I got to it and my legs felt strong so I decided it was time to beat my PB up it. Normally I ride at a high cadence in the saddle until near the top where the steepest part of the climb is. This time I hit it hard from the start, out of the saddle and ground my way up as fast as I could go.

By the time I hit the top I was dead, much more tired than normal. I peddled home looking forward to seeing my new reecord on Strava "KOM for me" I was thinking.

My time was exactly the same as my previous PB. I had set this by staying seated and spinning easily up the hill.

The moral of the story is "we are all different so what is best for Contador might not be best for you"

Bozman

If I stay predominately seated i end up with dodgy knees and a sore lower back, so now I tend to stay seated on the lower gradients and get out of the saddle on the steeper stuff.
I think that you just have to find your thing

ReesA

How about this? It gave me a lot of ideas.

http://youtu.be/E6QvK1NXINY

derbygrimpeur

I'm a fan of staying seated & high cadence. Works for me. But I'd say go with whatever gets you up the hill quickest.

cyco2

When I did some seated workouts on a trainer I found I could push more watts with a higher cadence. This is the same with climbing. In a ideal situation using a gear that keeps the cadence constant on a variable climb is efficient. However, to attack this sort of rider you would need to climb out of the saddle, using your weight rather than muscle power. So, training to do long sessions of out of the saddle climbing will be beneficial. My favourite attacks are those done by Emma Pooley and John Locke because they do a very high cadence out of the saddle. Showing a lot of training at that technique.

ShutUpLegs

clunkychunky wrote:

From what i have read it seems that the high cadence climbing technique was instigated by Lance Armstrong. Normally i would never question the great man (great imo) but seeing Contador yest i am now wondering if some people are just naturally more efficient and suited to climbing out of the saddle.

What do you think?

Hilarious

Outsider art by Loan

clunkychunky wrote:

However, my best times on various hills i train on is still set from when i was grinding it in a higher gear but with low cadence. Granted according to my garmin 500 my heartrate is very slightly lower when climbing the hills with a higher cadence and seated.

That's because people produce more power at lower cadences (within reason, of course). Spinning can prevent you from overdoing it, fatiguing yourself inordinately - so you can see why a GT rider might prefer to spin.

Tom Dean

Outsider art by Loan wrote:

That's because people produce more power at lower cadences

huh?

dw300

Outsider art by Loan wrote:

clunkychunky wrote:

However, my best times on various hills i train on is still set from when i was grinding it in a higher gear but with low cadence. Granted according to my garmin 500 my heartrate is very slightly lower when climbing the hills with a higher cadence and seated.

That's because people produce more power at lower cadences (within reason, of course). Spinning can prevent you from overdoing it, fatiguing yourself inordinately - so you can see why a GT rider might prefer to spin.

Oh, it's you again ..

mac220

Hi there,

If the main area of consideration is improving climbing then forget about the marginal differences that changing your cadence from 80rpm to mabe a 100rpm or vice versa might give you, don't forget that the pro's are looking for multiple marginal gains which allows them to get an larger overall improvement.

For a normal cyclists, like the vast majority of riders, the important thing is your power to weight ratio. i.e. watts produced per kilogram of weight. If you want to significantly improve your climbing you can do one of two things

1. Lose weight (including on your bike, but its much cheaper to lose excess fat if you have it, it actually saves you money i.e. by eating/drinking less)
2. Improve your sustainable power output (watts)

Its that simple, technique and all the other stuff will make next to no difference in realitity, there's lots of talk about optimal cadence and all that but when you improve you will find, guess what, a cadence that is comfortable for you which you can sustain and feels comfortable (as comfortable as it can when under physical stress). The problem is when you are struggling on a climb it is not possible to get comfortable becuase you can't sustain a confortable cadence. If you are having to fight your bike up the hill then the bottom line is your power to weight ratio simply isn't high enough to ride the hill comfortably with the gears you have. So if you are riding climbs and find that you are unable to sustain a comfortable cadence and you are lumbering up the climb then you don't have an adequate gear for the climb you are on and the power you can sustain for your current weight is not enough to be comfortable and feel powerful(of couse there comes a point when having easier gears means you are going so slow that its just not possible to get into a good rhythm)

A few years back I got back into cycling after a some time off and when I did my climbing was terrible, as a youngster I was able to climb really quite well. At that point I didn't know much about the training required for cycling and there wasn't that much information about to draw on. I ended up thinking about cadence and ended up changing crank lengths on my bike/trying different pedaling styles/changing seat height etc. Anyway a couple of years later I found out about the information Andy Coggan was producing, read a load of it and found out about how to train. Starting training in a more effective way, my power to wieght ratio improved and unsurprisingly my climbing also improved significiantly. I've not thought about cadence when climbing since.

Sorry for the long rambling post bt hopefully it may help you a little.

Cheers,

Mark

indjke

clunkychunky wrote:

Like him or loathe him, he is simply one of the greatest climbers ever.

clunkychunky wrote:

contador just has an incredible technique and i can only watch in envy

Exactly my thoughts
I love his technique
And I love spinning at high cadence too... I always remember this video when going uphill. Great motivation and example to take
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... fFI4alhJQc

oldwelshman

For long climbs, no one climbs out of the saddle for majority of the climb, they only do it for a change or to accelerate.
if your knees feel strained climbing seated using lower gear something is wroung with your set up for sure.
There are different ways to climb out of the saddle.
Out of the saddle,sometimes you will grind on too big a gear. If your pulling up on the bars your overgeared or grinding.
if your resting hands on the hoods and not pulling up at all then your "dancing" on the pedals, which is Berties style of climbing and can do this longer than grinding.
I can climb out of saddle for 1 to two miles if in low gear and not grinding. If I grind a high gear will struggle to do more than 200m to 300m as it is more or less sprint efforts and these can be difficult to recover from.
Some riders will say when going to climb out of the saddle to change to harder gear, this is not really necessary unless you want to attack in a race.

Soni

Check out some of Marco Pantani's climbing videos, he drove one huge mother of a gear whilst climbing.....was considered one of the best climbers of all time, but when watching him and Contador, Contador looks a lot more comfortable, and i also prefer the technique myself out of the saddle with a high cadence when climbing, works for me and feels great and comfortable despite being 16.3 stone.