Hills

Cleat Eastwood

Maybe the saturday ride could take in a few short hills -- or even ask for the saturday group to stop and do few hill repeats -I know you're not the only one who wants to improve their climbing- doing hunters over and over again would be stupid, but theres little hills round clieves hills way which are great for spinning up and shallow enough for powering up too- or even the little one up the side of beacons by the church - or for a longer less steep one the cobbs lane climb. I got stronger last year by doing the stravas on clieves hill, rookery lane and 'the real crank hill' - the one that goes up to the redcat pub.

Remember its still the time for winter riding in winter clothes and rubbishy roads - and most of the rides this year have been mostly flat - excluding what seems like a brutal A group ride yesterday haha - sounds to me like you've got the fast legs on - and you probably know that you wouldnt embarrass yourself in the A group (unlike me ), so if thats your strength ride to it- Oh and no one likes hills in the cold and wet - give it time and if theres a climb you want to try just ask - i'm sure at some point they'll include it in a ride. But see if anyones up for a saturday climb fest - doesnt have to be tough, just enough to make you feel the hills are worth it. One tip i'd give is if you find it hard dont look up the road, it can be demoralising - look down and just keep turning the pedals - thats why its easier following a wheel, something to concentrate on - you've deffo got the strngth, i'd say you just need to find a style of climbing (grinding/spinning) that suits you.

And as for who I am....well....look out for a tall man, dressed in black, muscles bulging, riding a di2 pinarello....and I'll be right behind him letting his tyres down.

goonz

I was the same, hated hills with a vengeance.

Then did the L2P24 last year and started off cursing each hill but by the end of it I loved them and I was actually enjoyed churning away up the hills. I now try at every opportunity to hit a hill and rev it as its easily the best training method for improvements in my cycling. without a doubt.

Ricey83

I always include a few good hills in to every ride as I like climbing and you do get a sense of achievement when you conquer a good climb plus they'll make you a stronger rider overall. When you start to beat your previous times up certain climbs I'm sure you'll start to enjoy them as it's a good measure of your improvement.

willow71uk

Cleat we did the Fairfield climb the other week on the Saturday ride and then Billinge lump but because of the pace and that hill i bonked at Billinge and had to leave for home and felt stupid for it. So you know who i am then? Still can't work out who you are the only person i know with a Pinarello is Mr. Francis so you will be behind him? Not many can ride behind Ste

MartinB2444

Probably depends on your mindset but I don't think it always helps to think of the hill as an opponent, that can lead to tightening up, poor technique and can make matters worse. As a relative noob, 53 with no natural history of physical fitness until the past 18 months I have been daunted by some of the hills I ride in the Peak. I've still not tried Winnatts Pass yet. I've found it best to drop down gears early, I keep dropping down whenever my cadence falls below my normal rate (about 80 for me). Make a conscious effort to relax hands, shoulders and jaw. Keep the breathing steady and at least try to imagine you have everything under control. Stay in the saddle as much as possible, if your legs are running out of strength or as you get to an impossibly steep bit get out of the saddle and just stand on the pedals as if walking up a hill, very slow cadence, very slow but effective for short periods without putting up your heart rate or burning out your legs. If it's a pretty hill, take in the view. Change hand positions on the handle bars. Don't peer straight down at your front wheel but a little ahead so you can pick the best line over the tarmac. If you haven't got one, get a heart rate monitor, they are great for helping measure your effort. Avoid busting a gut low down on the hill if you can avoid it.

Stay off the pies

backo

Parbold Hill is a decent climb for training, not bad tarmac, long and of varying gradients..can be busy though with trucks. There is a loop I do around there for training involves climing Parbold hill, drop down into Appley bridge from the diccy, up bank brow (roby Mill) before chucking a right climing up Farley Lane to the beacon, turn right and dscend back down into parbold to climb parbold hill and repeat..do as many loopsof this as you can and you will get yor climbing legs in no time.

dont try and get up the first climb as quick as you can...pace yourself.

pride4ever

If you dont like doing hills/fear them you might as well sell your bike. You need to get an aggressive state of mind, man where I live if you couldnt cope with ascents youd be fcuk'd lol.

gubber12345

And as for who I am....well....look out for a tall man, dressed in black, muscles bulging, riding a di2 pinarello....and I'll be right behind him letting his tyres down. [/quote]

that made me laugh cleat

Toxteth o'grady

Willow - I HATE hills! I've been spending the last couple of weekends just going out and doing short rides up parbold / hunters / appley bridge. It's the only way I know I'm going to get better.

If you want to do a early Saturday ride up the local hills at a sensible pace then give me a shout - I'll gladly meet you at the shop and come and suffer with you!

teisetrotter

Don't understand! Road bikes are about the climb and the two things I love is a nice smooth road to build the heart rate and a nice long hill to build the lactic burn. I don't live in a very hilly area, but the North Downs has a few and on my own personal rides (rather than the club runs) I try to find as many steep downs to go up and down.

The trick is to do it steady at most about 85% maximum of heart rate .......... otherwise you burn out.

willow71uk

Russ I will defo take you up on that offer I will send you a message through the forum or Facebook when I fancy it.

thegibdog

The thing is even with a group of similar riders not everyone will climb at the same pace and (usually) there will be a re-grouping at the top of the hill. No matter how strong a rider you are there is likely to be someone better than you at climbing, so if everyone avoided hills for fear of getting dropped there would be nobody riding them!

Plus if you avoid hills you won't get to enjoy the views from the top - Anglezarke is brilliant on a nice day.

Doing more hills will obviosuly help but so will generally improving your fitness as you'll find that you don't have to work as hard before you get to the hills and you'll have fresher legs for climbing.

saprkzz

I always hit hills in the comfort that a decent usually follows, and lets face it they dont go on forever, couple of minutes most of them, and surely for a few minutes in every ride (around 6 horrible climbs in my sunday rides is the norm) is worth getting better and quicker. Choose a nice comfortable gear, and plug away.

I did the Rawlinson bracket sportive a couple of weeks ago, and near the end they threw in a 16% climb that seemed to last forever, but i just got my head down and chatted to my mate next to me to take my mind off it. Got to the top and pressed on.

I ride with 53/39 chainset and 11-26 cassette, i am not the quickest in my lot, but i always catch up at the top, so have good receovery.

Crack on, you will learn to love them!

mk1markfalkirk

Hills are the best part! I'm a terrible climber just now but plan to get as much practice in as possible this year!

Just do it!

Jwleggett

I have to say, I'm with OP on this one - I currently avoid hills like the plague. I've only had my road bike since December and working my way up to do London to Brighton in June. Laps of Regents Park are no prob and have currently made my way to doing 45 miles comfortably. I rode out to Essex last week to see the 'rents - only 11 miles - by the time I got there I was exhausted!

Anonymous

JWL - regents park is as flat as a pancake. At least do yourself a favour and do Richmond for the sake of a 10 mile round trip. The traffic lights inbetween make for good intervals.

Ditchling beacon isn't the hardest hill in the world, but it is worth doing a bit of training for. It does go on!

HasselHough

Hills have their place and they're most of what I am focussing on now. I'm only light and ill never be mega fast on the flat so I figured I can at least get better going up hills. Anglezarke, Belmont, Jeffrey Hill, the trough, I love and hate themin equal measures!!

Stick at it! Going up hills must be helping my flat speed as well. At least I hope it does :-)

drlodge

To do hills better, you just need to do more hills. I'm now reasonably strong but still find some hills a challenge. Did the Burgess Hill Springtime Classic route on Sunday which was 72 miles of continuous hills around Ashdown Forest including some really quite challenging ones. Its the longest/hilliest ride I've done to date and was really quite tough, but managed it including not having to do the walk of shame up Cob Hill :-)

On Tuesday just 2 days after, I actually felt quite strong and went for a 25 mile ride that evening including some long hills. Those hills now seem like small bumps and I powered up them like a man on a mission. I can hardly believe how that Sunday ride really made me so much stronger!

Anonymous

That looks like a great ride! Just nabbed the GPX file for it - hopefully do it in April, or maybe next weekend

Jwleggett

coriordan wrote:

JWL - regents park is as flat as a pancake. At least do yourself a favour and do Richmond for the sake of a 10 mile round trip. The traffic lights inbetween make for good intervals.

Ditchling beacon isn't the hardest hill in the world, but it is worth doing a bit of training for. It does go on!

Yep - next step is Richmond Park. I must embrace the hills!

Ssscrudddy

I cant stand hills either, but I'm getting better. Im pleased to say I have recently conquered the biggest hill in the area. But its only a rise of 300 metres over 0.7 miles!

OK that makes me a wuss I know, but I gave up smoking end of October because I had reached the point where I couldnt breathe. I didnt even particularly want to give up smoking, but my breathing had become so bad that I couldnt even walk up that hill without being so out of breath that I was nearly puking. My breathing is fine now.

It took about 5 attempts to be able to make it to the top without getting off, the last little bit is horrible because it gets steeper, I just had to set myself a target further on than the last time I did it. My legs are getting quite used to it now.

stifflersmom

^^^
300 metres elevation over just over one km? That makes it greater than 25% average gradient. Which hill is it?

jamie1012

Ssscrudddy wrote:

I cant stand hills either, but I'm getting better. Im pleased to say I have recently conquered the biggest hill in the area. But its only a rise of 300 metres over 0.7 miles!

Only

A KIRK

A lot of the time it's getting into the right mind set to tackle a hill, I'm not a fast climber but I love the challenge and the feeling of dizziness when you reached the top knowing you pushed a little more than you should have.

Still takes me around 10 or so minutes to do the box hill climb, but I love it, for me it's about being out and enjoying the country side. Hopefully one day ill beat the 10 min barrier. Most of my rides locally are around leith hill and box hill, in fact everywhere I ride from home means ill have at least one hill to play with.

Mind over matter can make a huge difference, I remember years ago I hated hills while mountain biking, then I realised that actually I was rubbish coming down them on the Mtb, it was at that point I realised I actually enjoyed the climb more than the decent. Obviously some nicer weather always makes the hills more enjoyable.

scazzer

Willow i know how you feel its so easy to just go out and do a flat ride,so now on my way into work at 6.30 in the morning i do what i call my 3 peaks Vale Lane then up Beacon lane to Dalton church and then rest of Beacon Lane to the Prince William.

Ok there not that long but nice little workout first thing in the morning and ive got my strava times for them and alls im looking for is to try and better them as the year goes on,then once a week will have a good ride out to Croston/Eccleston area and get quite a few hills in which arent to bad but enough to get the legs burning,every little bit helps.....

willow71uk

Update. Iv'e done quite a few hills lately including Trough of Bowland, Jeffery Hill, Anglezarke and Winter Hill plus numerous local hills and i really don't mind them now and i'm getting better at them. So if like me you hated them just stick at it and it will pay off.

markhewitt1978

mk1markfalkirk wrote:

Hills are the best part! I'm a terrible climber just now but plan to get as much practice in as possible this year!

Just do it!

Agreed! I suppose I have to as where I live is all hills. I'm not that fast a climber, I can be cruising along the flat with my friends and as it starts to kick up they disappear into the distance -- but hills are still the best part of any ride, it's really nice when you get to that sweet spot where you are putting in just the right amount of effort and it's pulling you up the hill. Plus the feeling of victory when you get to the top is amazing .

That being said I'd like to do a ride from time to time where there are no hills, I have done once, in Spain, otherwise it's hills all the time!

goonz

Exactly, used to hate hils now I love them. they hurt when you are on them but make you so much stronger and the sense of achievement is worth savouring too. Had a fairly hilly ride on the weekend, for Essex its quite hilly not compared to you northeners!

Bustacapp

willow71uk wrote:

Update. Iv'e done quite a few hills lately including Trough of Bowland, Jeffery Hill, Anglezarke and Winter Hill plus numerous local hills and i really don't mind them now and i'm getting better at them. So if like me you hated them just stick at it and it will pay off.

Which one of them was the most painful?

I did Winter Hill for the first time yesterday. Isn't it the same as Anglezark though?

markhewitt1978

goonz wrote:

Exactly, used to hate hils now I love them. they hurt when you are on them but make you so much stronger and the sense of achievement is worth savouring too. Had a fairly hilly ride on the weekend, for Essex its quite hilly not compared to you northeners!

The main time I don't like hills is when they get in the way of a ride - e.g. I've got a 50 miler planned but I know on the last 10 miles I'm going to be tired, but in that last 10 miles there's also a big hill to get over, going around would add another 10 miles on top of that..