Short, but steep and nasty hills and how to tame em ?

Raffles

A lot of the runs I go on have somewhere along the way a short ( approx 150m ) hill which is damned steep which results in the club members ranging from flying up it to redfaced , panting and in agony. Regularly I see some of the older club members ,im talking about guys aged 50 upwards , whizzing up over that hill and I freely admit that im watching gobsmacked. Im one of the guys ( aged 42 btw ) in the middle , but wanting to do so much better. If the pig of a hill comes early enough into the ride, im whizzing up to the top too , but if it comes say 45 miles into it............i aint whizzing to the top with the fast guys.

I ride using a 105 5700 compact double with a 12-25 rear cassette, and I want to improve the technical side of tackling those climbs. How should you approach those hills ? Should you get yourself up to a higher 90 rpm cadence immediately before the foot of the climb and only change down to a lower gear when you cant keep that rate up ? If this is the way , id be aiming to do it most efficiently and not in a way that leaves me struggling to breathe at the top with a 190 bpm heartrate. Your advice on how best to take on these climbs would be very welcome.

diy

150m I will get forward on the seat nose in to my bum, up a gear, but make sure I go down the gears before I need to.

Raffles

diy wrote:

150m I will get forward on the seat nose in to my bum, up a gear, but make sure I go down the gears before I need to.

what is your reason for sliding forward onto the nose of the saddle ?

diy

You can use different muscles it's like standing up for a sprint

ShutUpLegs

Have you tried peddling harder :?:

MattC59

Maintain your speed. I used to slow down and settle into a low gear, then spin. Recently I've tried to maintain my speed in the gear that I'm in, it's surprisingly easy to hold this, and once your cadence starts to drop shift into a lower gear. Don't leave it untl you're grinding away before you shift, otherwise you end up killing your speed in a poor shift, and over working your muscles.

dave35

don't sit forward on the saddle, watch all the good climbers-sit back on the saddle and spin up the hill, or out of the saddle near the top and make it hurt-it's the only way to get better at climbing.

diy

See above, I'm simply suggestion you perch on the end of the seat. It probably comes from doing mtb, where the biggest problem you have is keeping your front down. I admit though that the geometry is totally different. However, i find getting forward helps me use a different muscles both road and mtb. Its very odd, you can be totally wasted after doing say 80 miles of an off-road enduro, but slide forward and you get a new lease of life for those last big hills. I think it uses less energy than standing too. Happy to be told its wrong, but it works for me.

oldwelshman

if it is 150m you should be able to sprint this hill out of the saddle. Changing to lower gear and spinning up makes it worse and you will do it much slower than those who sprint it.

BelgianBeerGeek

+1 to this. Short hill, muscle over it. Stand up, and use your legs. Sitting down and spinning is fine for longer climbs, but on short ones you simply lose all your momentum and have to start from scratch at the top.

thefd

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

+1 to this. Short hill, muscle over it. Stand up, and use your legs. Sitting down and spinning is fine for longer climbs, but on short ones you simply lose all your momentum and have to start from scratch at the top.

^^^^This^^^^

Raffles

oldwelshman wrote:

if it is 150m you should be able to sprint this hill out of the saddle. Changing to lower gear and spinning up makes it worse and you will do it much slower than those who sprint it.

If I have done a lot of miles prior to a nasty hill coming up and I get outta the saddle and try to power up and over, I get that dead feeling and fatigue in the front of my thighs probably because of the mileage before the climb. Id so love to improve in this area.

thescouselander

There's loads of those round here. I usually take a bit of a run up and let the speed take me half way up - its then just a case of putting in a little bit of effort for the last bit but I usually back off a bit for this and let the speed scrub off gradually.

Raffles

A regular irritation I find is you prepare for the hill and somebody in front of you in the pack is going slower as they are climbing , so you have to quit pedalling or else you touch wheels,as a result your momentum is gone completely. I think the deadening and heaviness of the fontal thigh area as a result of getting out of the saddle must be linked to lactate build up, its just demoralising to watch some of the guys who are a lot older than I am making the climbs look so easy :shock:

grechzoo

if you can push through it then do it, but otherwise, sitting back, and breathing into my stomach really makes climbing way easier, just not very fast

Raffles

Unfortunately on those club runs with short nasty hills, the guys tend to race up them like 1st man up wins a new porsche.

snoopsmydogg

Raffles wrote:

A regular irritation I find is you prepare for the hill and somebody in front of you in the pack is going slower as they are climbing , so you have to quit pedalling or else you touch wheels,as a result your momentum is gone completely. I think the deadening and heaviness of the fontal thigh area as a result of getting out of the saddle must be linked to lactate build up, its just demoralising to watch some of the guys who are a lot older than I am making the climbs look so easy :shock:

then do what the other guys do

Raffles wrote:

Unfortunately on those club runs with short nasty hills, the guys tend to race up them like 1st man up wins a new porsche.

if they can get past without touching wheels why can't you.

Crankbrother

ShutUpLegs wrote:

Have you tried peddling harder :?:

What is he selling?

An education?

ShutUpLegs

Crankbrother wrote:

ShutUpLegs wrote:

Have you tried peddling harder :?:

What is he selling?

An education?

It's edukashun ffs!

BlakeysFC

Definitely short but steep for me, the long gradual climbs are the bastards for me!

dartmoorscottydog

What are we calling steep here? There's an 20% near me about 150 m where if I sit back the front end starts getting very twitchy so getting on the front of the saddle is a defo

TKF

ShutUpLegs wrote:

Have you tried peddling harder :?:

Any reason you trawl through and troll on beginner threads with this inane crap?